Correcting What is NOT Being Said?

It is clear that there is a fair bit of new revelation in the air nowadays; God is revealing new truths, and new application of old truths.  

Anytime that happens, the enemy likes to fill the air with smoke in order to confuse God’s people. Discernment is needed: we must eat the meat & spit out the bones; we must reject revelation that is outside of “Spirit & truth,” remembering “Thy word is truth.” Godly discernment and the Bible are the standards by which we discern truth. 

But I have a growing conviction that much of what is being both corrected and rejected is not actually what is being revealed or declared. I am observing, with disconcerting frequency, a troubling pattern:

I’m seeing correcting what people are not saying, or at least what people mean to not say. 

Here’s what the process looks like; perhaps you’ve seen it happen:

• Someone declares a revelation which is not entirely familiar. 

• That revelation reminds a listener (or a reader) of something else, something uncomfortable or something false. Perhaps they encountered this revelation with an error in the past, or perhaps it’s just similarity. For example, the revelation that we are “saved by faith” often triggers “license to sin” warning lights, even though the person preaching salvation by faith has not promoted a license to sin. 

• As a result, we argue against the something false (in this example, against a license to sin) even though it is not the revelation that was being presented.  

• The result of that argument is multiple:

ü      the original revelation (in this example: that we are saved by faith) is lost in the confusion.

ü      an expression of the Kingdom is perverted in the direction of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not the Tree of Life

ü      the one who brought the original revelation may become confused, discouraged, or frustrated.

ü      an opportunity to expand the Kingdom is missed.

ü      we as a community are less willing to consider new revelation, concerned that it will confuse/offend some, or for fear that they’ll be persecuted for it.

ü      relationships in the Kingdom experience unnecessary stress.

In other words, there is really nothing good that comes from arguing with what people have not said.

First cousin to “arguing against what someone has not said,” is the idea of “fine tuning what someone has said.” The process is similar:

• Someone declares a revelation which is not entirely familiar. 

• One of the listeners (or readers) immediately notices that it is possible to take this truth too far. So they immediately post their warnings about the truth.

• As a result, people’s attention is taken away from the truth of the revelation (for example, “salvation comes through faith, not works,”) and focused on irrelevant details (“Yes but you MUST pray the sinner’s prayer or it doesn’t count” or some such).

• The result of that foolishness is remarkably similar:

ü      the original revelation (in this example: that we are saved by faith) is lost in the confusion.

ü      an expression of the Kingdom is perverted in the direction of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not the Tree of Life

ü      the one who brought the original revelation may become confused, discouraged, or frustrated.

ü      an opportunity to expand the Kingdom is missed.

ü      we as a community are less willing to consider new revelation, concerned that it will confuse/offend some, or for fear that they’ll be persecuted for it.

ü      relationships in the Kingdom experience unnecessary stress.

Frankly, these processes are often a real clear example of manipulation and control: they’re an attempt to draw attention to ourselves, instead of the person with the revelation, or the Spirit who gave them that revelation. Or they’re  the result of believing a lie: “The Holy Spirit needs ME to correct people, or else they’ll fall into error!” That’s rather a problem. In a public conversation, there is no good thing that comes from correcting an imaginary error in a friend.

Of course, the recommendation is to listen to what the other guy is saying, and then maybe even listen to what Holy Spirit is saying before shooting our mouths off.

Some disclaimers are appropriate: 

• There is real heresy out there. For example, some people are promoting grace to the point of throwing out some of the authority of scripture. It really is happening, and it needs to be opposed in the places it is happening. It does NOT need to be opposed whenever someone says something similar to what those people are saying: that would be correcting what people are not saying, and that would not be helpful.

• For some of us recovering from the error of Bibliolatry, the place of scripture in our lives is changing. It is no longer the legalistic trump card, cancelling personal relationship with God that it used to be: it really is being demoted from its place as the 4th person of the Trinity, and it should be. (And this in itself is triggering this process!)

Paying Rent on a Fishing Boat

In Luke, chapter five, Jesus borrows Peter’s boat, pushes out from shore, and teaches the crowd.

But after he was through teaching, an interesting thing happened: it’s as if Jesus performs a miracle in order to pay Pete for the use of his boat: 

4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” 6 And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. 7 So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink

There are several lessons that could be, and no doubt have been, taught from this passage, about obedience, about team ministry, about trials in God’s blessings. But the one that stuck out to me today was this:

Jesus is not afraid of making his kids wealthy.

For some years, I lived in a fishing community in the Northwest. I was surprised to learn that some of the local commercial fishing boats would consider the night’s fishing profitable if they caught eight or ten salmon. They could sell the fish for enough to pay the costs of running the boat for the night, the wear and tear on their equipment, and still make themselves a paycheck.

But here, Jesus gives them so many fish that it swamps two commercial fishing boats. Admittedly they built fishing boats differently in the first century than in the twenty-first century, but it’s very clear that this one catch was way more than the optimistic boat-builders had planned for.

A catch like that could provide enough money to live off of for several months, maybe longer, while the fishermen spent their time hanging around Jesus and learning from him. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that this one catch was six months’ worth of income for their families: for us, that’s a lot of money, maybe tens of thousands of dollars.

There are a couple of interesting observations about the process which Jesus used to pay rent on Pete’s boat:

• Peter never offered to rent his boat to Jesus. He never offered Jesus use of the boat. Jesus intrudes: he just stepped into the boat of the fisherman who had failed at his work all night, and asked to be pushed out from the shore. Jesus intrudes on Peter’s failure and expects Peter to comply with his request. I don’t think it’s too much to infer that Jesus just might break in on our own lives, even in the “ungodly” place of self-pity, and use us.

• “Being used by God” sometimes looks like it did for Peter: sitting on your sore backside, wishing you were doing something else, while he’s talking to other people about things you don’t really understand.

• Then Jesus told (he didn’t ask) Peter to do something foolish: to waste some more time and energy on something that hasn’t worked, to invest some more in the place of Pete’s failure. Worse: Pete is a professional fisherman, and he knows that this is the wrong time to catch fish (that’s why he’d been out all night: night is better fishing time on that lake), and this preacher-guy is trying to tell him how to do his job.

• Jesus didn’t just write Pete a check or a bag of silver coins for the use of the boat. He badgered Pete into working some more, and then he blessed the work that Pete did. Jesus used the vehicle of Pete’s own hard work (harder than he expected it to be: that was a lot of fish!) to drop twenty thousand bucks (or however much) into Pete’s checking account. While it’s not the only way Jesus does things, it’s a common one (Matthew 17:27)

• It was when Peter put the net down at Jesus’ direction that the freaky harvest came in. It happened again, almost the same way, after Jesus had raised from the dead, in John 21.

• But Jesus wasn’t afraid to drop a large chunk of wealth into the hands of an untrained fisherman. He didn’t give Peter a six-week lesson on How to Handle Money, or remind him about the importance of tithing if you expect God to bless you. He just blessed his socks off; and nearly sank his boat.

• Peter recognized the presence of God in the sudden appearance of slippery, flopping wealth sinking his boat and his partner’s! His response: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Jesus uses that moment of spiritual openness to give Peter a new job: “From now on you will catch men.”

By way of application, I find myself reflecting on these action points:

1. It’s probably good to let Jesus intrude on my day-to-day trudging. Maybe even invite him in.

2. I probably need to re-evaluate what it means to be “used by God,” so that there’s a whole lot less confusion. Sitting on my butt, if he’s asked me to sit, can be frightfully profitable ministry, though it doesn’t look so impressive on the resume or the Facebook page.

3. I need to guard against resentment: fancy expectations (see #2 above), intrusions on my life (#1 above) and failures.

4. If I’m asking God for money, perhaps I should ask him to bless my job. That seems to be something he does pretty well.

5. And I remind myself: when I experience that transition from discouragement to fruitfulness, don’t be surprised if you get a new assignment from Heaven during that season.

Fishing Lessons

There’s an old saying:

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

That’s actually a good saying. Roughly translated, it means, “It’s better to teach people how to overcome their trials than to simply meet their immediate needs.” The Book talks about “equipping the saints for works of ministry,” being the primary work of church leaders, not ministering to the saints’ needs.

(A smart aleck has pointed out that if you only teach him to fish, he may starve to death before he gets good enough at fishing to feed himself: I applaud the desire to not ignore the short-term need, but let’s not get off-track here.)

May I speak bluntly? This is a problem with the way we do church in the western world. We feed people regularly, and we put comparatively little effort into teaching people to feed themselves; we minister to people by teaching them, comforting them, counseling them, involving them in programs, but seldom requiring that they stand under their own strength, or fight their own battles for themselves. By default, we are teaching them to depend on us for their daily fish, for their daily bread.

There are two errors in this: those who keep handing out fish every time they’re together with other believers, and those who keep accepting and eating those fish, every time they’re together. Both are in error.

This has been pointed out about the Sunday Morning congregations: since these are very often led by pastors and teachers, whose gift it is to pastor and to teach, very much of those gatherings are about being pastored and being taught.

(In deference to the aforementioned smart aleck: there are some circumstances where young or wounded believers cannot take care of their own needs or feed themselves. Let’s acknowledge that they exist, and not get off track: those people are few and far between in a healthy community.)

But this is the 21^stCentury! This is the age of Social Media! Indeed. And since the weakness is in people, when people migrate from the Sunday gathering to the online gathering (including blogs, including Facebook), they bring their weakness with them.

It is just as easy on Facebook as it is in the hard pew on Sunday morning, to sit still and let others feed us day after day, week after week, year after year. “Another fish, please!” It's just as easy to always be the one asking for prayer, always be the one who needs the encouragement of the worship or the sermon or the other people's posts to keep me going until next week.

And frankly, it’s just as easy on Facebook as it is in the pulpit on Sunday morning, to keep feeding the folks around us, to keep digesting the Word, to keep listening to the Spirit, and keep spoon-feeding it to the folks nearby. “Here ya go. Put that fishing pole down, and have another fish!”

Now, neither in the Sunday church, nor on social media, is it safe to assume that everyone who consumes is incapable of feeding themselves. And neither in Sunday church, nor in social media, is it safe to assume that everyone who teaches, everyone who encourages, everyone who runs a program, is only handing out fish, rather than teaching the hungry man to fish.

Part of this malfunction is the tendency for human beings to follow other human beings. As we make disciples, it’s imperative that we teach people to follow Jesus, not to follow ourselves. And of course, it’s critical that we follow Jesus, not human leaders, as we grow.

A brief side note: this was God’s plan all the time. Exodus 19:5 was just before the covenant on Sinai, where God proposed this covenant first: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant (stay in relationship with me), then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.” It’s been his plan from the beginning that we follow his voice, that we honor our covenant relationship with him, NOT that we follow laws and priests, which were only instituted because God’s people rejected this covenant (in Exodus 20:19) and asked for a priesthood.

For me, the real issue is this: how am I doing? How am I doing at feeding myself? How am I doing at being an equipper of saints, rather than a distributor of fish?

I invite you, dear reader, to take a few minutes to do a bit of self evaluation: How are you doing at feeding yourself? How are you doing at making disciples and equipping saints? 

A Legacy From Adam

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.” CS Lewis, Prince Caspian

As a man, as a human being, I am heir to the strengths and many of the peculiarities of those who have gone before me.

I have brown hair and blue eyes: I inherited these genes from my parents.

I sunburn easily. I inherited this characteristic from the Scotsmen and Englishmen who populate my family tree.

I also inherited something from one of my more distant forbears, the first Man, Adam himself. While I am certainly not his only descendent on planet Earth, I am one of his descendents, and one of his heirs. I believe that you and I, Adam’s heirs, have the right to name ourselves inheritors of his calling.

What was Adam’s calling? What was the first responsibility given to Adam?

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. –Genesis 2:19

Adam’s first responsibility was to give names to every creature that God made. “Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.”

I had a revelation recently about how important it can be that we – Adam’s heirs – are inheritors of Adam’s calling, Adam’s authority.

One night, a group of prophetic intercessors had gathered together in our home, and were praying about a minor stronghold in our hometown. There was a high bridge downtown, a favorite among the despondent members of our community; it became known as “Suicide Bridge.” For years, it had been known by that name, and used for that purpose.

Recently, several of us had noticed that when we crossed that bridge, thoughts of suicide, temptation to jump, came upon us: we who were healthy, satisfied, happy individuals. These clearly were not our thoughts: they came from outside of us, from something associated with death, and associated with that location.

As we prayed together, we understood that there had been enough suicides, enough wrongful deaths in that place, that the enemy had capitalized on all the death, and assigned a demon to the bridge, to become a stronghold, whose responsibility, it seemed, was to maximize the enemy’s investment in the form of suicides from the bridge.

Most of the intercessors gathered together that night had learned that the “right way” to deal with things like this was to discern the name of the demon, and then to use that name, with the authority of the name of Jesus, to break the creature’s right to live there and to work there.

But we didn’t know the creature’s name.

As we were looking for the name, God spoke up: “You are heir to Adam.” Hunh? What? “You have inherited Adam’s authority to name living creatures.”

And the light went on!

We named the demon, “Bob,” and then we broke “Bob’s” authority and assignment in that place, and kicked him out. The “urge to jump” was gone the next morning, and within a week, the city “just happened” to raise all the railings on the bridge to eight feet high. There have been no more suicides that I know of off of that bridge. More importantly, there is no “urge” to end it all when passing by that place.

Hmm. That was interesting. I suspect we may be onto something.

Another time, we were involved in a wonderful and glorious session of healing and deliverance, in a wonderful, family-based environment. Most of the words of knowledge that directed our ministry came through pre-teenagers that night. Everything was going well, our friend was finding real freedom, until we came upon one demonic stronghold that would not let go.

After we fussed and fumed for a bit, God said it again. “You are heir to Adam.” We named the beastie “Squiggly” (as that was the dominant characteristic: he squirmed and slipped out of our “grasp” as we prayed). We assigned him the name, seriously: we took up the authority we’d inherited from Adam, we stripped it of whatever (unknown) name it had gone by, and we gave it a new name: its name was now Squiggly. Then we commanded it by that name, and the demon submitted quickly and left peacefully.

If you’ve been part of deliverance ministry, if you’ve been involved with a team breaking down demonic strongholds, you may have encountered the obstruction of a demonic beastie whose name you did not know, and therefore you may have had difficulties overcoming the thing.

Based on our revelation, supported by our experience and by the Biblical description of Adam’s calling, I believe that we as heirs of Adam have the right to Adam’s commission: “Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.” If you can’t find the thing’s name, then give it a name, and use that name to get rid of it.

(I am not arguing for a theology that says our authority in Christ is limited only to those circumstances wherein we know the enemy’s name; I’m merely observing that many intercessors and ministers have encountered obstructions that we have associated with not knowing the demonic spirit’s name. And of course, I am not encouraging rookies to wield this weapon as if it were a talisman; I remind you of the seven sons of Sceva.)

Finally, I observe that there is, in practical terms, a substantial difference between referring to a spirit, and naming a spirit. Talking about “that squiggly demon” is not at all the same thing as naming the thing “Squiggly,” assigning it the name, exercising Adam’s authority. If I am just talking abouta spirit, a demon, then I am not exercising the authority I’ve inherited from Adam; I’m merely talking (to it, to God, about it…) as a man. But to namesomething is to both claim and exercise authority over it, authority that you actually have, authority that you’ve inherited. Step into the authority you’ve inherited from Adam: wield the authority you’ve been given.

I’m interested to hear if others have found this weapon, and what experiences they’ve had when wielding it. Please comment here, or email me at nwp@northwestprophetic.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Whose Will Is It Anyway?

Let’s just settle the matter: God is good. OK? Are we good on that? 

Jesus is the perfect representation of the Father, and he never gave anybody sickness, never broke anybody’s leg, never killed anybody. He got angry, yes, particularly when religious people put obstacles in front of others coming to know God, but he never brought disaster, never encouraged disaster, never taught his kids that disaster is good, never looked the other way when somebody did bad things.

God is good.

Unfortunately (or at least inconveniently), God’s will is not the only force happening in the universe. If God was the only one who got to choose, we’d see an entire universe full of the stuff Jesus did: healing the sick, raising the dead, deliverance from demons, teaching how good God is.

But that’s not what we see. We see wars, famine, busted relationships, child prostitution, kids disrespecting parents, all manner of evil.

Some people have begun with the assumption that God is the only free-willed being in the universe, and, looking at evil in the world, they accuse him of being either powerless or evil. You can’t reach a wise conclusion beginning with a faulty assumption.


The real reason for this mess is love. Real love. Because real love has to be free; it has to be freely chosen.

One of the evils we see in this life is people trying to force other people to love them. Variously expressed as manipulation, self-pity, stalking, control, abuse, and occasionally murder, it illustrates that love cannot be forced. In order to really have real love you really need to have real free will. Without free will, the closest you can get to true love is a sex slave. Not the same thing.

God has set up this universe to allow real love relationships between his creation – you and me – and himself. Which means that God has given us free will. Not “pseudo free will,” the real thing, absolutely free, dangerously free. We can choose to love him, but we can choose anything else we want to. We can choose to hate God, or other people; we can choose to ignore God, or people, or traffic laws. We can choose to speak only in King James English, or to rub blue mud into our belly button.

There are real consequences to our free-will choices. It may be as simple as ending up with a belly button that is now stained blue. Or my choices may result in someone hating me back, beating me up because I didn’t live up to their expectations of me. Or I may end up in jail simply because I decided that red traffic lights meant “Go” this week, and crashed into someone who foolishly thought that my choices were controlled by colored lights. Free choices result in real consequences.

A whole bunch of nasty things in this otherwise lovely planet have come from people – human beings, made in the image of God – making stupid choices. That’s a lot of the reason we have slums and wars and corporate greed and manipulative leaders: people exercising their free will, and nasty consequences resulting.

And without that free will, we could never experience love. We couldn’t be loved, we couldn’t love. So we kinda have to keep the free will thing. Not that we have the power to change it anyway: this is the way God created the universe; I can’t overrule his free will, and he won’t overrule mine.

But that’s not the end of the matter. There is another free will at play in this game.

You and I – the human species – were not the first beings created with free will. Apparently long before we were created, an angel decided to depose God and become God himself instead. When God objected, the rebellious angel started a war with a third of the angelic host, and was about as effective as a gnat would be in its attempts to stop a volcanic eruption: not so much.

So the rebel Lucifer and a bunch of his friends were chucked out of heaven and landed where? Yep, here: this planet. Good ol’ Mother Earth. (Bunny trail: I wonder if that was the “mega asteroid” that destroyed the dinosaurs? Hmmm.)

So now we’re inhabitants of a planet with at least two intelligent species with free wills: humankind and angel-kind. And Lucifer, now going by Satan, has made “steal, kill and destroy” as his choice. So he steals, kills, and destroys. (We could get into how he implements that choice, but that’s another conversation.)

And a good deal of his efforts are still about gathering a following: he persuaded 1/3 of the angels to follow him, and how he’s persuading human beings to follow him.

One significant difference: humanity was given authority that Lucifer was not: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” We were given authority on this planet; the only way the Lucy & Co can get it is to persuade someone with authority to give it to him. He’s already failed at persuading God, so he goes to work to persuade man: and when Adam submitted to the Lucifer rather than to God, he handed his authority over the planet to Lucifer as well.

It’s a long & exciting story, but the conclusion was that Jesus got that authority back in the cross, and rather than keeping it himself (making all of creation slaves without free will), he handed it back to us. “All authority in Heaven & Earth has been given to me. Go therefore….” It’s our planet, and we have authority here, unless we can be persuaded to make the choice to give that authority away.

We still have our free will, of course: we can choose to eat the apple, to turn the stone to bread, or we can choose not to. It bothers me how many of my human brethren have chosen the apple, the bread, over real freedom; it bothers me how often I’ve chosen them. I’m taking my choices back.

That's a whole lot of free will going on! No wonder so much happens that is not like our good God. 

One of these days, the rebel Lucifer will experience the consequences of his free-will choices on this planet. An eyewitness described that event as a “lake of fire.” And anybody who chooses to follow him will have the privilege of following him there, much to the grief of the One who made them for love. But free will is really free, absolutely free, dangerously free.

I must admit, in some ways, I’m really looking forward to the day that the fallen-angel-without-authority is removed from free circulation upon my planet and among my people. I’m sick and tired of his shenanigans: stirring up hate and murder and destruction, and then blaming it on God; planting hopeless or accusing thoughts in people’s minds and then accusing them for the thoughts he planted. I’m tired of smelling his stink on the planet. I look forward to being free from that foul influence.

So in my free time (that portion of my time that I can actually make a free-will choice about; that is: all of my time!), I’m working to minimize his stench: I’m working to persuade people to “Step away from the lie” and learn to live loved. I’m working to confront lies when I see them, and when those who believe them (including myself) will listen to me. I’m working to put limits on the actions of the fool who wants to steal, kill and destroy. I’m working to let my loving Creator be seen, be loved, be followed in my house, in my neighborhood, on my planet. I’m working to enter his rest, and learn how to better be loved my own self. 


I can’ t change it all. But I can change me, and that will change the people I can touch. I can’t solve the problem, but I don’t do what I can do, I’m letting the problem continue unabated. Not good.

I want my planet back! 


Care to join me? 

A Problem with Trusting.

One of the less-visible wounds from betrayal or abuse by leaders we've trusted is an unbalanced sense of trust. Some will not easily trust again, and yes, that needs healing, but a less-visible (and therefore more dangerous) wound works in the opposite direction: too much trust.

 

A victim of untrustworthy leadership (and the "untrustworthy" can be merely in the mind of the wounded) very often has lost a measure of confidence in their own ability to "correctly" hear from the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, this makes it easy to walk away from an untrustworthy leader, only to concede too much trust to trustworthy leaders, even to the point where we (perhaps unknowingly) trust the leader's words more than the things that Holy Spirit speaks to us directly.

 

I see at least three temptations in this:

1) Leaders can be flattered and tempted to take the place of the Holy Spirit in a wounded person's life. ("They need me!") This is not an insignificant temptation; it feels good to be needed.

 

2) The wounded person can be tempted to look to a man (or woman, but usually a man) instead of to the Holy Spirit. ("I trust him to hear God correctly!") This often masquerades as a "safe" alternative.

 

3) They both are likely being set up for a serious disappointment. We're talking "crash and burn" level  disappointment here.

 

The reality is that no human being can really take the place of the Holy Spirit in my life, and any attempt (intentional or not) to do so will end in disaster.

 

I have watched helplessly as this scenario has exploded in marital affairs, divorce, broken congregations and the violent end of the successful ministries of people on both ends of the equation. Occasionally it has resulted (presumably with other complications) in murder. I suppose these are predictiable, given that the source of this calamity is famous for "stealing, killing & destroying." 

 

My "takeaway" from this is to emphasize - in my life, and to the folks around me - that God is an effective Father, well able to lead his children Himself: my goal is always to lead others to Christ, and to be led myself to Him. Any time (and I think this is an absolute) one human being lingers between God and another human being, there will be trouble. 

Trust His Heart (Even When It Hurts)

It's always a challenge to trust someone's heart, whether it's God or our brothers/sisters. But it makes a huge difference in our experience in that relationship; it can make the difference between growth and suffering.

Spurgeon wrote: ‎”God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to be confused. If I cannot trace His hand, I can always trust His heart.”

When others (whether God or man) do something that we don't understand, or something that hurts, the enemy accuses them before us. He often declares, “Look what they did to you! You can’t trust them! That hurt you! They did it on purpose!” Implicit in his accusation is the assumption that we have the right to judge God, to judge our brother or our sister. The accuser of the brethren accuses them before us, and invites – tempts – us to join in that accusation. He tempts us to join his work against those whom we have trusted.

But we actually have the choice: We can often look past the event to their heart. With God we can say, “I am confident that God will not do something for the purpose of hurting me. If I can't trust my understanding of what He's doing, at least I can trust his goodness; I can trust that he is FOR me! He has my best interests in mind.” And it helps take the sting out of it.

And if our brother or sister does something that we don't understand, something that hurts, we have the option of looking past that “something” to their heart. We can't say that every brother, every sister has our best interests in mind, but often, they do, and yet the enemy still accuses them before us. It is appropriate to look past the thing that we don't understand to their heart.

If we can say, “I don't understand, but I know that they're FOR me,” then we can trust their heart, instead of our understanding of their actions. It doesn't fix the problem (and there will alwaysbe problems among human beings), but it takes out some of the sting, and it silences the enemy's accusations, which are much of the source of pain.

Sometimes we have to say, “Yeah, that was stupid, but they didn't know any better.” Maybe it's because they're immature; maybe it's because they didn't know we're fragile in that area; maybe it's because they're going through their own storm right now.

Often enough, I have been led to declare, “I don’t know that they are for me, but I will not assume otherwise. I don’t even know that they didn’t know any better, but I will not assume otherwise. They may have done that to hurt me, but I will not join the enemy’s accusation against them!”

Still the enemy accuses them before us, tempts us to be their judge and jury, tempts us to take our eyes off of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and focus instead on the offense, on the pain (real or imagined) that it causes.

If we choose to partner with the father of lies, we will believe his accusation, assume evil of our brother, and join his accusation or resent him, and thus is a “root of bitterness “planted in our heart. We don’t often intentionally choose to partner with the accuser, but if we respond with accusation, resentment, bitterness, then that is in fact the choice we have made. Ouch.

If we instead choose to partner with the Father of Light, then we can choose to trust that in the midst of it all, He has our best interests in mind, trust that he will bring good out of the evil, trust our brother’s heart. I’ve heard some starry-eyed brethren insist that if we’re focused on God, then it won’t hurt. Bosh. That’s denial.

A wound is a wound, and while it’s not profitable to focus on the wound, neither is it profitable to pretend it’s not there. But if we respond in trust – of God, and of our brother – then it’s a lesser wound than the enemy’s plan, and it can be healed more quickly, more completely, and more profitably: we can learn from the wound.

Graham Cooke teaches that the wise response is not to become hard in an attempt to be un-woundable. The wise response is to learn to be healed quickly.

Father, let us respond as Jesus did, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” and as Stephen did, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” The devil’s got more than enough followers anyway; I won’t add my name to that list.