I am waxing nostalgic today. I have been doing that a lot lately. I am reminded of Erickson’s Stages of Development and the one that has to do with either integrity vs. despair. I am in the middle of a life examination and a sorting of events. I am categorizing those memories of things I wish I had done differently as well as those things that I really want to hold on to. Life is very complicated. Sometimes it would be great if we could live it in reverse. Then there may not be as many things that we would have done differently. Or maybe we would have done them anyway.
I’ve hurt a lot of people in my life. Some of it was intentional. Most of it was unintentional but those hurts always came from a place of selfishness. Putting myself before others. Many of the messages that have come from my life that have helped others, have usually come from a place of my experience. Often in the Bible, God gave men a message to proclaim. Others, he gave a message for them to “live.” Often times, these messages were the results of mistakes they made and pain they experienced. Take Jonah for instance, his disobedience and attitude toward repentance are his message. Hosea, the Old Testament Minor Prophet, was tasked with the lessons learned from a relationship with an unfaithful spouse, Gomer, who was the illustration for God’s Love for Sinful Man. In my life, many of the lessons have come as I have lived and often made the wrong choice. As I am reflecting, often there is an urgency to get the message out that is often the summary of a mistake I’ve made or someone I have hurt.
Today is no different. I remember when I left the Church in Alabama where I once served. I have mentioned in other blogs and in conversations with others that I began to push the people there toward the end of my time in the church instead of leading them. I always loved them but my agenda began to override my love for them. As the agenda moved to the forefront, my love retreated. I was blinded by my own “vision”. God reminds us in scripture that everything must be done in Love. Even Truth must be proclaimed in Love. If not, it can hurt more than it helps. God is Love. If Love is not first, God is not first. I have seen many of the things that I wanted for them come to fruition in the world in other places since that time. However, I was not able to lead them due to my agenda of wanting right things for wrong reasons. It is significant that some of the same cautions that they exhibited during that time, I have exhibited since then. I was put in their place. I was put in a place to be pushed instead of being led. It didn’t feel good. I know it didn’t feel good for them.
I’ve dreamed about the church there so much in the last six months. There have been different scenes that have played through my mind as if I was still there even though it was over 20 years ago. The dreams have been vivid. They are always marked by a sense of regret and sadness for things I wish I would have done and things I wish I had not done.
This morning early as I was sitting out by the fire before my work day began, I was thinking about one of the instances that happened there. As I was getting ready to leave the church as tension was beginning to mount because of really hard preaching I was doing. I’ll call it “scrotched earth” preaching. I was relentless. I would like to say that every bit of that preaching was done out of love but much of it was done out of frustration in my own life. Some even commented that I was “whipping them to the ground” everytime they came to church. I wish I would have listened to them. There was truth in what they were saying. The things I was preaching were true but the spirit in which they were delivered was not Love. It was frustration. They tried to get me to step back and change my approach. In my stubbornness I refused. I continued until I became so frustrated that I resigned. From hind sight, I know that I was setting it up to be that way. I wasn’t conscious of it at the time but that is the truth of it. No one could refute it because what I was saying was truth. But it was not delivered in Love. The reason it was allowed, I believe, is because I spent so many years prior speaking to them out of Love. Often ignorance, but always love. I left there was some seeds of bitterness planted. I so wish I could say that I had no part in sowing them. I did.
I remember an instance on my last Sunday there when a young Godly Lady, who I loved very much, came into my office in tears begging me to provide words of healing to the congregation on my last Sunday there. Of note here is a very important point. When people are pushed by a Pastor and not led by Him/Her, it always creates a division. That division begins to widen as the hurt deepens. Love would remedy that. However, when the division occurs, love tends to be pushed further back as both “sides” begin to polarize. In the case I am mentioning, several key church members had refused to continue to minister in that church if I (the Pastor) was leaving. This young lady was pleading with me to ask them to come back. I refused. I let “the chips fall where they may.” It was a mistake. I should have been a healing force instead of a division encourager. Of note here is a few key things for all of us to remember. 1)People are always more important than Agendas. This is true even if the agenda is good. 2)Hurt is always a sign that something is wrong. When people show genuine hurt over decisions we make, we should take a look at those decisions. 3) Divisions create walls between people that sometimes never come down. 4)We are not free from responsibility for divisions just because we do nothing. When divisons occur in the Body of Christ and we could have done something to help to prevent it or to heal it and we refuse to do it, we are responsible and guilty of causing division. The example I think about it Pilate washing his hands before the crowd and saying he was clean in regard to Jesus’ Blood. After all, his logic was that he didn’t bring these charges against Jesus, the Pharisees did. He had the power to stop it, but he did not. That is the key.
Please forgive me if I have caused division in your life or in your church.
