― Anne Lamott
In the Christian journey there are often things that slow our progression. Sometimes it's just a change in the ground we are walking on and it takes an adjustment in the shoes we wear and other times there is a fence we can see God through, even touch Him, but our ability to move forward is hampered. Then there are those times when a thick cement wall towers so high over us that the thought of giving up is scribbled on our list of options. When I asked ... no, I told God I was finished, I was resigned to the back row of church... no, no, I don't even want to step into a church, I was too tired to keep fighting, and He handed me a pencil. I parked my car on a scenic turnout, looked out over the water and drummed that pencil on the steering wheel. My ambition to write was not as big as the jumbled mess of thoughts and confusion pulsating in my head. Was it worth it? Do I have the strength? I would rather read about somebody else overcoming the giant. Then I was reminded of a book I had purchased over two years ago at the suggestion of a pastor the Lord had sent with a word for me. "Unbroken" I wasn't sure if it was fact or fiction, but it wasn't my story and I was willing to lose myself in it, rather than face that unbroken, not even cracked wall. And that book just happened to be in my trunk.
Since I was very very young I have always had a temper. I can rage like no other. In fact I have several times in my life gone into a blind rage and totally forgotten what I had done. In the last three years of seeking God I have all but beaten that raging temper... until... suddenly two different people in my life sent me over that edge again. I couldn't control my tongue, I lashed out in words I hoped cut them to their very heart. Okay, there must be reason. Within weeks of each other these two people seemed to pick me up and throw me all the way back to the starting line. Did I really want to hike that whole trail again? Nope. I would rather escape into the life of what's his name ... Louis Zamperini ... Olympic athlete and POW. Let the wall stand.
I sat along that highway and read for hours. I got lost in his story. I understood him. The more I read the more I "got" him. The one person who read my story from beginning to end said something like this, "I just wanted something good to happen. It was one thing after another. Every time I thought it would turn around, something bad would happen." That was how I felt reading Louis' story. How does this guy keep going? Even after being set free, it seemed it was one thing after another. I understood the pencil now, cause I was marking up the book with arrows, little stars and a list of page numbers to go back to. Then I read a line in the book that shook me. I had to read it several times. "Without dignity, identity is erased." There was more, "Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.” Immediately I realized this is the enemy's goal, to steal our identity. If there is one thing Christ wants us to know is who we are in Him. If there is one thing the enemy does not want us to know is who we are in Christ.
I had called together a couple friends to help me walk through this whole anger thing I thought I had beaten. We spent hours on a Saturday morning, forgiving, breaking soul ties, exposing lies and seeking truth. I got a lot out of it, but the big "Aha!!" moment came a week or so later when we met again to minister to another and as we gathered our stuff to leave I spit out the question, "Why? Why is it these two people can throw me into such a rage after all the work I have done?" Just as though she was telling me what she had for breakfast, one friend spit out the words that caused a crack in the wall. "They continue to enable the abuse."
For weeks now I have been tearing this apart. Yes, they do continue to enable the abuse but there is more to this. Many times I have been asked, why the person who could have protected the victim is more hated than the one who committed the abuse. I kept thinking back to the POW's and how the enemy continued to steal their dignity. What kept them going? What kept me going? When you know that somebody who is supposed to protect you knows about the abuse, be it sexual, emotional, physical, verbal, doesn't matter, once they know we expect to be saved from it. We can believe the person abusing us is messed up and wrong. There is a part of us that says, when my Dad or Mom, Pastor, Husband, big brother, whomever, finds out, you are in big trouble Mister. Then it happens, they find out and they do nothing. That is when the big spear of "You don't matter" is thrust through our very soul. I thought I mattered to someone.
Then it hit me, God is an enabler. He enables all kinds of abuse. He is the ultimate enabler. There are people starving, being sexually abused, physically abused, beheaded, raped and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He knows about it. He does nothing. Why? Free will. What is the difference between God enabling and a parent, friend or pastor? They don't get to claim the free will card. That is not right. So why does He? Because He is God does not bring me any peace. This is one of those moments while driving that I know God has something for me to see and the enemy is dancing around screaming so I can't hear God.
Okay, back to the beginning. How does the enemy steal identity? What do we need to be secure in who we are? Love? Food? Shelter? Protection? When we are denied basic provision, we tend to do whatever it takes to get what we need. After years of deprivation we are suspicious of those who try to give it to us freely. The enemy really knows what he is doing here. Through abuse he fills us with lies of shame. He fills us with lies about blame. He tells us we are unloved, that we don't matter. But still, what about the enabler part? Why does God enable? Why does He allow abuse? Then it hit me... the lie ... we see the lies about shame, blame, guilt, etc., but the root of all lies is about the basics. The lie fed to us, even through psychology is that we need to be fed, sheltered, and protected to acquire our identity. That is true if all we want is an earthly identity. Untrue if our identity is in Christ. Taking our dignity does not take our identity in Christ. It may take our identity if our identity is found in things of this world. True identity and even dignity is found in Christ. Earthly dignity is taken through circumstances and wounded people. In some cases people who do not know their identity in Christ, people who are deeply wounded, want to take the identity of others. Nobody can take our identity if it is in Christ.
I have often wondered how people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer could walk to the gallows with such words as "This is the end - for me the beginning of life." I always thought of him as a brave man, but now I see him differently. Bonhoeffer was a man who knew his identity. In the book "Tortured for Christ" Pastor Richard Wurmbrand talks of Martyrs taking beatings for those men who could not take any more. I thought of him as a hero. Now I think of him as someone who knows his identity in Christ. I want to be so sure of who I am in Christ that I could kneel, knowing I was about to die and overcome any fleshly fear, knowing I was about to see Jesus. A true martyr knows that any pain inflicted on him or her, no matter how severe is coming from a wounded person, and has absolutely nothing to do with his or her true identity.
Go and make disciples of them has a whole knew meaning. Not only do we tell them who they are, but we don't stop until they know their identity. We erase all the lies. God loves the homeless, God loves the starving, God loves the raped, beaten, and prisoners. God even loves the enabler. I have to believe it is only because of their own wounds that a human being could, would allow abuse of another. I have to believe that they are believing the lies of the enemy.
To feed the hungry, to protect a child, to shelter the homeless, are acts of love, but if we don't do these things, it is not because we don't love, but because we are unable, either financially, maybe geographically, or because we are broken.
The Lord did not stop here. He has spent several months now showing me more of the enemy's schemes. I thought a lot about the title of the book "Unbroken". I wanted to be able to say I was unbroken, but it was not so. I have broken down several times and said "I quit." I have even begged God to take me home, "I am not doing any good here." Then the Lord whispered, "When looking for lost dignity, many will pick up pride by mistake." Ha. "Unbroken" They didn't break me. When we find our dignity, our identity in things of the world, the Lord takes us to a place of brokenness, so we can be corrected in where we find it. Some of us who are extremely stubborn must be taken to a place of having nothing. When you can be hungry, homeless, beaten and abandoned and still reach for Abba, you will find your identity. When your dignity and identity are in the things you have accomplished, the titles you wear, your reputation, your financial success, you have mistakenly picked up pride. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? (Matthew 7:22) We did not break, we built big churches, we fed the hungry, etc. etc. sounds like pride. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:23) You picked up pride instead of your dignity, your true identity.
In the end Louis Zamperini was broken. He found his identity and thus his dignity. He was an amazing man and I enjoyed his story more than most. He is one I look forward to meeting.
“In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation. Softly, he wept.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Book of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
No shame in brokenness, when seen as part of the pathway to identity.
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