Evil in the church, the zombie within and spiritual battles.

Love is like a paper shredder, literally.  I will explain later.

Some weeks are great, some are not so great, and some are just plain awful.  We like it best when those in the last category are less frequent.  I am getting over one of those weeks.  I blame the enemy within and the enemy without.  The enemy of our soul has an ally within us that will lay dormant and then at an opportune time rouse itself like a zombie and the two join forces in an attack. 

For me there was a combination of circumstances, each by itself was not that difficult, but together they provided a seedbed for a powerful alliance.  First, and I expected this; I miss my son who is at boot camp.  For the last 20 years he has always been around and for the last 4 years has been my best male friend.  We are very close and his absence makes life feel a little weird.  Second, was a series of minor frustrations that make up life.  These are not a real crisis, but things related to work, potential clients, and circumstances beyond my control-the basic reality of life. An example, the post office losing books and being bureaucratic about helping find them and being painfully late about mail delivery. Dealing with these frustrations of life should not have been that difficult.  Even added to the emotional low this should not have been such a powerful combination for ill.  Late one night I realized the subtle and secret ingredient that the enemy used so effectively.

With our son gone we are in the process of down sizing, two people in a 2500 sq. ft. 4/2 home makes no sense.  That downsizing goes all the way to my files.   As I pulled out the files some were easy to toss.  The file containing my sophomore hermeneutics project went away pretty easy.  Some files are still with me such as the outline for a future book-a mystery about money laundering using a church.  (When I get this one published please buy several copies).  But one file I came across was the catalyst of the emotional train wreck of this week.

This file was my ongoing record of dealing with the most ungodly people I ever met in church.  It told the story of watching church leaders make unwise, misguided and even evil and sinful decisions.  It contained a letter from a new believer telling how church leaders came to him and tried to bully him into a course of action.  It contained copies of emails that reported criminal behavior on the part of church members and even someone on staff.  It contained attendance records showing a growth rate of 40% per quarter over the previous year, with the notation that I warned leaders, “If we don’t deal with this issue it will adversely affect our ministry.”  Within two quarters the additions had ended and attendance was in decline at about 10% below the year prior.   Looking over that file was like looking at crash scene photos where a loved one was killed. 

Originally, I started the file to have a record so we could document how we addressed the issues involved.   I kept the file so that if legal action were brought I could say, “This is what I knew, this is when I learned about it and this is what I did.”  When I finally admitted the situation was hopeless I left the church packing all my files in boxes and stored them at my house.

Part of the healing process was to acknowledge that what the leaders did was evil.  Forgiveness is not possible till we admit the reality of the evil.  We can’t forgive someone until we can say, “What you did was categorically evil.”  We don’t repent until we say to God or the person we wronged, “What I did was categorically evil.”  I left the pulpit ministry and worked on forgiveness.  I got help from a godly councilor and from a faith community that specializes in inner healing.  I willfully chose to forgive, but the pain is still a real possibility.

When I read over that file I felt the pain again.  My stomach tightened, my mouth got dry, my heart rate accelerated, and my hands began to shake.  All the visceral reactions that are hard wired into us from our adrenal glands were restarted.  If you return to the crash site don’t be surprised if it hurts. 

As I reviewed the file I struggled with what to do with it.  Part of me wanted to toss it out with some sort of ritual to mark the occasion.  Part of me wanted to finally reveal the dirt to set the public record straight.  Part of me wanted to use it as a case study to warn other ministers about the priority of quick, decisive action when dealing with misguided and/or evil people.  Part of me wanted to write it into a book, just change the names, location, and add in money laundering.  Not knowing what to do with this file, this detailed record of the wrongs done, I put it aside where it sits till this moment.

But the enemy knew what to do with this hurt to accomplish his purpose.  Mix it with sorrow and frustration and brew it into a concoction that Paul described in Galatians 5 as the works of the flesh.  Now, not every manifestation of the flesh was at work on me this week.  The enemy may not have wanted to over play his hand, but this was his beginning.  Like Velcro on my heart the enemy knew where to hang hurt.

In morning devotions, Paul pole-axed me.  He wrote to me by way of the Corinthians “Love…keeps no record of wrong….” There was a time that I needed and should have had this file. But the statute of limitations has expired, I have no contact with that church and my imagination will suffice for a novel about money laundering.  So once this essay is proofed and posted this file will be shredded.  Like shaking dust off my feet I will let God use each shred of paper as a witness against evil.  It will be His to judge not mine.  I will also re-forgive something I have learned through this process.  I will close and lock the door on this part of my life and there will be one less key to reopen it.

There are so many lessons to be downloaded from this experience that time fails me.   But there is one lesson I needed to pay close attention to and you may as well.  When we are unaware of the power and state of our emotions, this is a time that the enemy will delight to attack us.  We are never more spiritually whole than when we are emotionally healthy.