Don't Charge God: Navigating callousness toward God after hurt

After you’ve been burned so many times, you start to lose sensitivity because your skin becomes damaged in the process of protecting itself.  This happens in our spiritual lives as well, family, church, friends, disappoint and harm us.

We even end up harming ourselves with poor choices.  We take the hurt and charge it to God. It’s not an unthinkable reaction, I myself have spoken the words, “God how could You do this to me,” and  “I don’t deserve this, how is any of this Your love for me?”  But was it really God doing anything to me? 

It’s hard not to judge an all-powerful God for what others do, especially when they use His name to exercise emotional and spiritual brutality.  And unfortunately, we’re taught not to ask God “why?” When “why” is Biblical (read Psalms), what’s not Biblical is charging God with the crimes of others. Yes, even those who came with “God said.”  So what in the world does one do LaShonda? When someone hurts you, you spend time with God, that’s how you learn His voice And become familiar with His embrace.  You focus on His word, and check if what they did was Biblical, if it fit God’s definition of love, parenting, marriage, friendship, Christianity.  We are always thankful for examples, but the truth is, we have to know God for ourselves, to be able to discern what isn’t Godly.  

God isn’t bringing dysfunctional people into your life, He is showing you your environment is hazardous.  He isn’t bringing opportunities into your life just for you to never win.  He is letting you see that the way you choose someone to date isn’t working. He is showing you that you need freedom from your childhood.  The trouble with us is, we don’t want to make the choice to seek God and obey in every area of our lives, instead we want to make all the choices autonomously and be protected from the consequences.  When it’s other people hurting us, we don’t hold them accountable, set boundaries and seek healing, we hold God accountable and set boundaries with Him, the one who heals us.  I encourage you to practice radical honesty with God, I encourage you to tell Him You feel unloved, like a step-child of His and not His biological. AND that you want to experience His love & presence in a way that dispels every misconception you have internalized about who He is and what it means to have a relationship with Him. Ask Him to uproot the bitterness you have toward Him, and to forgive you for casting blame where it didn’t belong.   

The thing about secrets is that they allow you to anchor in lies instead of learning to love the freedom that truth brings.  Yes God knows all, but Him knowing all and you surrendering all are not the same.  I implore you to start your August 2020 with some radical honesty, about your relationship with God, especially without church in play, the relationships you invest your whole self in and your eternity.  

Ask Him to reveal and remove the calloused areas of your life, that you will sensitive to once again. 

Ask Him to give You a new heart to love Him, recognizing that loving Him includes enduring some hard things for His glory, for a beautiful eternity with Him. 

 Ask Him to demolish the mental fortresses in which you hold your abusers and persecutors, surrender it, in exchange for the freedom that comes with being able to love Him with all your mind. Relinquish your desire to prove the haters wrong, and focus on proving that God was so right about you, He was right to redeem you, right to call and equip you, right to set you before others to let the light of Christ shine through you.  

Ask him for new perspective, so that even when their words don’t match, you can see the heart of others, and decode what their true cry is.  

Ask him to give you discernment, so that you don’t fall prey to the same schemes and trappings that caught you before, so that you see them afar off and avoid them, so that you walk on the pathway lit by His word.  

Ask Him to take away your fear of obeying Him, your fear of total surrender, so that your actions produce nourishing fruit for those around you and glorifies Him. Ask Him to let His Holy Spirit reign, so that even when people hurt you, and you feel unloved by those who should love you, you don’t ever stop loving God, and running to His embrace and hoping in Jesus. 

Ask Him to demolish every preconceived notion that just because someone is your genetic relative or best friend you must endure their abuses and aren’t allowed to protect yourself from their assaulting lifestyle. 

Ask Him to expose and uproot every misconception that has been ingrained in you, telling you that His love had to be earned, or that all you had to do for favor was be a good person, or that you weren’t allowed to get help and grow away from damaging environments. 

Ask Him for a renewed passion for His word, a love for His voice, that You will be able to discern what is good and acceptable and perfect will. 

And when you ask in Jesus’ name, have faith that He answers, and the let the way you live after your prayer be the “amen.”

Selah

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