A Spiritual Victim
Yesterday, I had a great conversation with one of the ministers on the Castle Rock team. He is a older man and wise. We were talking about various aspects of the church and ministry in general, until we came to a part of my life where I felt severely hurt. It happened early in my Christian life. It happened at a school where one of the professors spiritually abused me. Not wanting to name names, or provide too many details, but this experience was very traumatic. It was an experience of feeling helpless and hopeless. It was a time of taking a spiritual beating on a weekly basis in the name of Jesus. The professor acted totally inappropriately. The experience was heightened because I was a new Christian. During this time, I felt like a victim. I felt powerless to help myself or to deal with the situation. After talking to my minister friend, I had a deep realization in my life. Because I felt like a victim, I have done everything I can to never have that happen to me again. I never wanted to feel helpless in my ministry. I never wanted someone else to spiritually abuse me. So I studied everything I can on influence, conflict, persuasion, and how to work in a congregational system. Like a woman who has been attacked, I resolved to train myself to the highest capacity to defend myself. This event in my life was so traumatic that I used it to motivate myself. There was some deep seated pain that I buried involved in this event. God has used it to strengthen me. I really appreciated my friend for pulling this insight out in me. It has been there awhile, but I just never realized the full impact it had on my life. It is really interesting how broken we all are. People have been hurt deeply in the church. There are scars. This is the nature of ministry, broken people working for the Lord. Insights like this are priceless, the question is what will I do with it? Hopefully this will help me to minister even more effectively in the future.
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- The Story of Spiritual Formation
About The Author
Hopefully, this encourages people. People have been through some much in life. Brokenness is so deep.
Matthew,
Great thoughts. I had a similar defining moment in my life as well although not near as bad as yours. As I emerged from the heartache of being broken by a brother in Christ, God uplifted me and pointed me into ministry. I look back on this episode in my life now and I am thankful to have gone through it. I don’t think I would ever have gone into the ministry had I not gone through this trial.
Looking forward to seeing you in two weeks!
Matthew, I know exactly what you are talking about. I preached for some eight years at one congregation and worked harder than I ever worked before or since. They had experienced a split losing more than 100 people. With the help of the Lord we built it back to where we were running more than before the division. A new elership developed. Two of those men were men so outstanding that I would have gone through fire for therm. The time came when thye turned on me like rapid dogs. The hurt of all that was done and said to me yet remains even after ten years and I had a personal struggle with bitterness that sometimes still pops up but the Lord has richly blessed me and he brought good out of that awful situation. We have to learn from these experiences and remember that no matter what God is in control.
Everyone has a story like this. Thank you for sharing guys.