India Missions 2018: The Kindness of God

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Some of you may have noticed that my blog has been pretty vacant this past month. That’s because I spent 11 days on a mission trip to India with a team of 24 other people. It was led by Tyler and Christine Johnson of OneGlance Ministries, and between being gone for two weeks and not posting anything the week after, it’s been pretty sparse around here. However, all that is at an end! We went there to minister to the Tiger Widows near the Sundarban region, to wash their feet, share the gospel, and hold medical clinics for them and other locals, and we did all that and more. I want to share with you all how the trip went and all the awesome things God did while we were there, as well as some of my personal struggles along the way. Thanks again to all of you who prayed for us and donated money and supplies prior to and during the trip. It made a huge difference in what we were able to accomplish!

The evening of November 5th, I flew out of Portland International Airport down to LAX where I met up with the team, and from there we flew to Shanghai, Kunming, and eventually into Kolkata. Just the flights and layovers took over a day and a half, and the trip there had its own series of mishaps and strangeness to it, but we all made it there okay, although not everyone’s luggage was quite so fortunate (two of the team received their bags the day before we flew back to the States. Whoops!). We arrived late in the evening and spent a night in Kolkata, woke up and had a leisurely breakfast, prayed and worshipped as a team, then drove a few hours south to the hotel we stayed at for the next five days. Although one of the buses tried really hard to break down on us, we got there in the late afternoon with not really enough time to do anything, so we settled in for the evening. The next day was our first day actually ministering to and reaching out to the locals, so I’m going to start counting “days” from there.

That night in the hotel we divided up into three groups: the medical team, foot washing, and prayer. The medical team consisted of four main people: Sheila, the doctor, Christine, a NICU RN and head of the medical team, Janelle, a Pediatric RN, and myself, an adult trauma RN, and then multiple other team members doing vital signs and other related tasks. You’ll probably hear me talking a lot about the medical stuff and not as much about everything else, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I spent much of each day seeing patients, and far less time doing whatever else it was that the rest of the team was doing, so please bear with me.

On the first day, we got on a bus and drove the 45 minutes to the tent we would be doing the clinics at. Around an hour into the drive, we asked how much further we had left, and were told by one of the local pastors that we were about halfway there. So much for the 45 minute drive time, lol. #IndiaTime
Once we arrived, we were greeted with flowered necklaces by some of the the local pastors and other community members. Having done some setup the night before at the hotel, we unloaded our gear and the two other nurses and I got to work. The tent was on land loaned to us by a local man, and it was probably 40 feet by 80 feet in size, with these inset booth-areas set up on the side walls of the tent.

We set up a triage station in booth 1, a station for an RN and Doctor in booths 2 and 3, a medication/pharmacy station in booth 4, had one booth that our residents sports medicine and exercise physiology team members used, and then the remaining booths were used for the prayer teams and foot washing. I spent all of the first day working with one of the local pastors identifying everyone’s physical problems and sending them on to see either the RN or doctor for further follow-up. If it was something simple, I would just write for medications and bypass the other team members, but in most cases I was identifying the chief complaints and sending them to an appropriate party.

I will be honest, this was one of the most emotionally painful days of my entire life. It might sound overly dramatic, but my heart’s cry is to heal the pain of this world. While I normally take care of patients, it is usually 2 or 4 in a day, and I can help meet a lot of their needs. That day I saw literally hundreds of people, most of whom I already knew we could not solve their problems, or at best could band-aid them with some over the counter medications. In other words, I knew we were solving nothing, and it killed me inside. With each patient I saw, it was like taking the knife and driving it just a tiny bit deeper. I diagnosed one man with Parkinson’s Disease within 3 seconds of seeing him, long before the interpreter translated a single word to me. Medical science in the United States can’t even fix that, much less me in some bamboo-and-tarp tent in a field in the Indian countryside. I spent my entire day stuffing my emotions and trying not to break down sobbing over all of this because I knew if I started crying, I wouldn’t stop. If I couldn’t stop, I wouldn’t be able to help any more patients, not that it seemed we were helping that much anyway.

Well, I learned a good deal about myself on this trip, including the fact that according the Enneagram (a kind of personality-profile/character-and-motivation test), I am a type 2. Type 2’s are known as the Servant, which only further accentuated the fact that my desire is to want to help, heal, hold, and fix everything, everywhere. So seeing hundreds of patients I couldn’t help was extremely hard for me, and it was hard to keep myself together enough to keep working. By the end of the day I felt entirely hopeless, and after all the patients left I just sobbed in my friend Tyler’s arms.

He prayed for me, and it helped a lot, which was good, because I was expecting to spend the entire two hour trip to the hotel crying, which I was thankful I did not. I’ll be honest, I don’t know that I am quite doing justice to how hard this was for me, and it might sound to some like I am exaggerating, but I was handling this very poorly, and Janelle, the pediatric RN was having just as much trouble as I was. It didn’t end there though. The next morning during worship, knowing we were about to head out to do this all over again, I literally felt like my heart was breaking. I was sobbing yet again, although trying to do it quietly so as to not disturb everyone else’s worship. I told the Lord that I didn’t want to go back because if I went and saw more patients, then I would care about them, and I didn’t want to have to care about them because it was simply too painful for me. Knowing full well my heart was breaking and we hadn’t even started for the day yet, I went anyway, but it was very hard for me knowing exactly what I was walking back into. I’m not someone who begs God in prayer, simply because there is no reason to and it doesn’t make the prayer any more effective, but that morning I literally begged God to help me make it through the day.

Thankfully, God in His infinite kindness answered my prayers. You see, much of the rest of the team was praying for the people and seeing God heal them of all the chronic pain and problems they came to us with, but all I was encountering was hundreds of people’s pain and suffering. They only got prayer for healing after I saw them, and I never heard about it again, so to me it felt incredibly hopeless, while other team members were riding high on the miracles that God was doing in their midst. Tyler and Christine both changed some things up that helped me a lot that morning, and also helped shift my perspective to see and understand some of the other things God was doing.

First, Christine took over triage that morning, and I helped out in the medication tent for a while. That was a good break for me, and meant I was giving people medications to help, even if they were only temporary solutions to long-term problems, but it was less-hard. Second, someone from the prayer teams would come by every so often and let us know the different miracles and healings God was doing. Hearing things like “Hey, every person who has come for prayer for joint pain so far this morning has left totally healed and pain-free” did a lot for my wounded heart (thanks Sung!). As the day went on, I was able to recognize that while I was seeing a lot of people with pain and brokenness, fifteen minutes later, Jesus would reach out and heal them. In this process, a number of people would get saved right after they got healed as well! For me, the second day was much better than the first.

In retrospect, I want to share something my dad said to me after I returned to the US and told him about all of this. He said to me something to the effect of “I bet that gave you a glimpse into how God feels about those people each and every day.” What he said struck me. Sure, that first day of the clinic was one of the hardest days of my life. But the Bible says in Revelation 21:4 that, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” I remember once hearing minister Jesse Duplantis share an encounter he had with Jesus, where Jesus referred to that passage and told Jesse (roughly) “Those tears are mine. There will come a day when I won’t have to cry anymore.” My mercy-driven heart is touched by the fact that God cares for these people, and cares for hurting people everywhere. Sometimes when I hear stories about God healing people, I literally start crying because of His goodness and mercy. God is a kind God—the kindest, actually. No other god or idol or whatever heals people and solves their problems. Kali, an evil Indian goddess of death and destruction, is worshipped out of fear because she harms people if they don’t. Our Jesus is the exact opposite and brings only goodness, healing, and abundant life regardless of what we do or don’t do.

Healing wasn’t all that happened either. The morning we left Kolkata, my buddy Sung found a gemstone on the bus seat that supernaturally manifested from heaven. It was a small, cut stone that was clear in color. One or both of the days we did the medical clinics at that tent, some of the prayer team kept feeling water splattering on them from the direction of the tent wall. The problem is that we were in the middle of a field and there was no water being thrown or falling on them. No natural water, that is. Jesus, the Living Water, was showering on them while they were praying for people! God was showing up and showing off, not just in healings, but in spectacular manifestations of His glory and presence.

The third day we went to that same tent and had a church service where we worshipped with the locals, our team leader Tyler spoke, we prayed for people for healing and salvation, and God came and touched them all yet again. Later that evening, I had some fun with some of the other team members doing inner healing and deliverance in our hotel room, and God yet again showed up and brought freedom from emotional pain and demonic bondage.

There was much more that happened on this trip, but it’s fairly lengthy, so I am going to share more next week in Part 2. I will share more about the Tiger Widows, going out to someone’s hut and praying for a paralytic woman, tell you about their tailoring program and how you can get involved, and more. Check back next week for more stories of God’s goodness poured out in healing and miracles!

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The Kingdom Within—The Reality Of The Inner Dimension

In my growing experience doing inner healing, I have come to understand that Inside each of us is a dimensional space of some kind. In this space, we actually have far more activity than we might imagine. For those who have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), this is where the various personalities exist when they are not the presenting part that is using the body at that moment. This is also the realm where demons inhabit if they are inside someone. It might be known as an “Inner World” or “Inner Dimension”, but it has a variety of names. I personally refer to it as one’s “System” simply because that is what my friends call it, but any of those three names are equally relevant, as might many more.

Luke 17:21 references this inner realm, saying, “nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Consider what that might mean. The Bible says that we each have the Kingdom of God inside of us. That passage doesn’t say that Jesus lives in us (although He does for those who are saved), but that within us is an entire realm of the Kingdom of God. Let that sink in. We know the Kingdom of God isn’t a tangible location on the earth. I can’t buy a plane ticket and fly there for the weekend, but we know it still exists, so its location must be other-dimensional. Some argue that it is a dimension that overlays ours, others think it is in outer space somewhere. I think it is probably both and more, but it is clearly also a dimension within each one of us.

This has some interesting implications. As I mentioned above, this inner System is where demons go when they are inside someone. Luke 11:24-26 says, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” Also echoed in Matthew 12:43-45, this passage contains some interesting secrets. While I will not delve into the Greek here, there are some interesting details having to do with translation—ultimately the passages should say that the house is swept, ornate, and empty (read this article if interested in the Greek)

When we cast demons out of a person, if all we do is cast it out and do nothing to influence how the demon was able to get inside the system to begin with, then the demon will simply return later, find that the system it left earlier was cleaned up a bit and made nice and pretty for it, and it will bring roommates with it. When I cast out a demon, I first find out how it got access to begin with, and we remove the point(s) of access, often through prayers of renunciation. After making the demon leave, I pray for Holy Spirit to fill up every place the demon vacated. In doing so, it stops being swept clean and empty, but rather the door locked to the demon, swept clean, and filled with God’s glory.

This inner dimension can fit a lot of stuff because it isn’t relegated to the size of our bodies. Angels can be in there, demons can reside there, and Jesus can be enthroned in that dimension as well. This inner dimension is where strongholds are located. The Bible speaks in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 about them, saying “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” At first glance it appears that Paul is talking about demolishing arguments other people are making, but if you read the sentences more closely, it actually seems Paul is talking about the inner world. We cannot take other people’s thoughts captive; only our own, so Paul is clearly talking about our own inner soul here, at least to some extent. Thus, if we understand that strongholds are some kind of castle or fortress, it makes far more sense that we can have strongholds inside us when we realize they exist inside the System. When we use the power of God to demolish those strongholds, we are waging war internally against the demonic, taking over Kingdom ground within us.

One observation about the Inner System is that we can create anything there that we want, literally by saying it. Job 22:28 says, “You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways.” We create things with our words, and the workings of the System is a very good indicator of this. For example, I was recently working with one of my granddaughters, and this particular part was upset because she felt God doesn’t answer her prayers. I had this part ask God why her prayers aren’t answered, and from what she relayed to me, one of the reasons had to do with a lack of faith. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I began to explain what the Bible says about faith being a tangible force and energy, and then said “There is faith right in front of you. Look at it and tell me what you see.” This part, who is looking in front of her while inside the system says “Oh, I see this glass vial with blue liquid and it has a cork in it.” My declaration that faith was in front of her caused this spiritual item, a small glass bottle to appear inside her System. We must remember that God spoke and in speaking created myriads of realms, and we are made in His image. When I am doing inner healing with someone and speak something in faith, I release it into their inner system, and they can verify that it is there. This happens consistently, not just with that vial of faith (which, by the way, I had that fragment drink and she informed me it tasted like strawberries, cherries, and chocolate. What fun!).

When we decree a thing into the System, we establish it in the inner dimension. Because I know this when I start working with someone I make sure to add a few things that will help them. I decree a spring of the water of life appears in their system, that continually flows and turns into a river that runs throughout the entire system. I decree the Tree of Life is planted inside the System as well, and oftentimes parts who like gardening will grow them in their garden, which is again located inside this inner world. I have a friend who had one fragment who likes to garden, and this part began to weave small rafts of willow leaves and sends plant starts down the river into other areas of the System that we haven’t been able to access yet. The third thing I usually do is I decree a Healing Center into existence, and if the person doesn’t have any fragments or alters who are good at doing inner healing work (such as with my grandchildren) I staff the Healing Center with angels. By decreeing it, God assigns angels and they get sent into the System to staff the Center. All of these things have long-term positive benefits and ensure that healing is taking place inside even if we aren’t doing inner healing prayer at that time. And all of it occurs simply by declaration! No wonder the power of life and death is in the tongue!

I began pursuing inner healing and deliverance around fifteen years ago, in my early twenties, and working with the System is the fastest, easiest, and most effective manner of ministering inner healing I have ever seen. The reality of the Inner World is important to understand, and it helps provide a practical backdrop to understand where demons reside in a person before they are cast out and how multiple personalities can function. In general it helps us understand how we can work with the functions of the multidimensional reality we live in to help bring the healing power of Jesus Christ to the individual.

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The Power of Renunciation

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The past few months have kept me pretty busy, but one of the things the Lord has been highlighting to me is what I refer to as transformation ministry—what most people call inner healing and deliverance. I have been doing a good bit of work of late both with myself and family members in this area, and am seeing the fruit at work. It is incredibly empowering, as it reveals to me more and more about the level of power and authority we have been given in Christ Jesus. One of the things I have made frequent use of during this process is the power of renunciation.

According to Dictionary.com, the word renounce means to give up or put aside voluntarily, often by formal declaration, or to disown. Any time we renounce something during a prayer session, we are making a clear statement about what is part of us and our lives, and what we have no involvement with. There is something about renunciation that creates a dividing line separating us from what the enemy wants to do in our lives. As we disavow things of darkness, whether overt or covert, it breaks the access the enemy has on our lives. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 puts it this way:

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

This means it is no longer a “we”, but an ‘I” and “them”. As we renounce things, and our involvement with them, we are literally making ourselves holy and set apart unto God in that area of our lives. As we do this, even as the above verses suggest, it makes room for God to enter that part of our lives in a new way.

In a previous blog article, I discussed The Mechanism of A Vow, which touches on similar subjects, but renouncing things works based on spiritual rules. The things we choose to engage create openness for spiritual entities to engage us in return—what I call the Law of Focus, seen clearly in James 4:8a, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” When we renounce things, we give it anti-focus, pushing it away from us in the spirit.

Almost anything can be renounced, and it is a fairly helpful and commonly used tool in my inner healing and deliverance toolkit. Some examples include: negative emotions, erroneous beliefs, books, activities, movies, video games, organizations, vows, and more. Certainly not every book, movie, video game, or organization is bad, but some of them are. Sometimes, it’s not even that the thing itself is bad, but how we have internalized it due to our belief system is unhealthy. A good analogy of what this does is that these things can open doors in the spirit, and the enemy wants to use them to bring darkness into our lives. When we renounce them we close those doors and remove the enemy’s access to those areas of our lives.

Practically speaking, let’s say that someone has been playing and enjoying a video game that the Lord has been showing you is unhealthy. Don’t misunderstand–I’m not saying all video games are bad. I have written a book called The Gamer’s Guide to the Kingdom of God specifically using MMORPG games as a backdrop for understanding how the supernatural realms of God function. I’m not anti-video-game. However, not all video games are wholesome either. If the Lord is showing you that it is time to put that game down due to its spiritual influence, you might pray the following prayer or similar:

“In the name of Jesus I renounce [name the video game] and all of my involvement in it. I apply the blood of Jesus to that area of my mind and soul, and ask that you wash it clean with the water of Life. In its place, I ask for you to fill me with the Holy Spirit.”

This is a super simple prayer that can be used for many different things. It is one example, but renunciation prayer needs to cover three imperative parts in a specific order:

1. Breaking agreement with the old (ie. renouncing)
2. Removing the negative
3. Replacing it with positive

As we progress on our individual inner healing journeys, I highly encourage everyone to not just memorize specific prayers, but to understand the principles behind them, such as those shared here. The above prayer is simple and can be used and remastered for most situations, but when we understand the three parts of a renunciation prayer, even if we forget my example prayer, we can simply make up our own on the spot. Regardless of whether we use a script or devise our own wording, the underlying principles are very effective. Renunciation is powerful, and is a simple way to wreak havoc on the enemy’s involvement in our lives, setting us free to enjoy all that God has for us.

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Pleasure In Miracles

Recently the Lord has been challenging me and my beliefs about what He will and won’t do, and more specifically what He will and won’t do for me personally. I watched a video this past week about some friends of mine who have been receiving bread supernaturally from heaven, and who have sealed bottles of water turn into wine. This has been going on for a few years now, but while I enjoyed the video itself, I found myself getting hungry for my own encounters like this experience. Recognizing that God has done some amazing this both for and with them, I would like to have that happen too.

For those who are familiar with my writing, this may sound odd, as I have seen gemstones, feathers, and gold dust appear on numerous occasions. I have written two books on the subjects, Gemstones From Heaven and Feathers From Heaven, and am working on the sequel, Oil From Heaven, which should be completed later this year. Nevertheless, I have a hunger that is only growing in me to see the miraculous more and more. In spite of what I have experienced, I have much more that I have yet to experience. Furthermore, many of those things I have encountered have been temporary in some way. For example, the last time I recall having a gemstone appear was probably a year or so ago. While some might be saying “I’d be content with just one”, I’ll be honest, once it happens once you hunger for it again and again because it is just that spectacular.

Well, as I began praying about this, the Lord challenged me, saying “Your problem is that you don’t really believe I want to do it for you.” Whoa. That’s rough.

But it’s true.

In spite of the miracles I have seen to date, I have trouble believing it will happen again. It’s not that I think God doesn’t want to do them for someone—its that I have trouble believing God wants to do them for me. Why is that? What singles me out as someone so special that God doesn’t want to perform the same works He performs for others for me too? After all, the Bible says that God doesn’t show favoritism (Romans 2:11). If He does something for on person, He will gladly do it for another. So where is my problem then?

Clearly, deep down, I believe a lie about God’s nature, His love for me, and the good things He has for me. So how do I change my thinking (ie. repent) and begin to believe what He actually wants to do? I find that looking at the Scriptures is a good way to begin that process. What do they actually say?

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

The Bible says that it is God’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom. Are miracles part of the Kingdom? Certainly! If so, then God takes pleasure in miracles and delights in giving them to us. Are miracles “things”? Certainly! If so, then the Bible says that God will graciously give us miracles. The word for “graciously” there is the Greek work charizomai which means:

-to do something pleasant or agreeable (to one), to do a favor to, gratify

-to show one’s self gracious, kind, benevolent

-to grant forgiveness, to pardon

-to give graciously, give freely, bestow

God takes pleasure in miracles. He won’t just give them to us, but He will show himself kind and benevolent, freely bestowing them upon us! Lack and limiting thinking must go, and be replaced with a revelation of God’s favor toward us. In this process of pondering how I need to change my thinking, God brought my attention to his bread-miracles in the Bible. Think about what God did in the Old Testament—He caused a bread-like substance, manna, to appear six days out of every seven, with a double-portion on the sixth day, in sufficient quantity to feed every single human in an entire nation of people for forty years! When Jesus was speaking, he caused bread to appear that fed 4,000 to 5,000 men, not including women and children besides. We call that multiplication, but at some point the “multiplied” bread had to appear supernaturally. Is it really any different?

God wants us to experience miracles. He wants me to experience miracles. And He wants the same for you. It is time to expand our thinking, raise our expectations, and transition to a deeper belief in the goodness and extravagance of God. As we do this, I believe that we will move a step closer to experiencing the miraculous on a daily basis.

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The Truth About Sin

As the son of an Episcopal priest, I was raised in a Godly home with parents who love the Lord dearly. I was taught the disciplines of scripture reading and regular times of private prayer, all of which have held me in good stead in my life. On the other hand, I was also taught some fairly harmful things about the sin and wrath and punishment that truly aren’t the heart of God. This was especially highlighted to me recently when I hit a problem and went into an emotional tailspin. In speaking with a close friend he reminded me of something I already know, but had forgotten—the truth about sin.

Many of us have been taught that sin is this horrible thing that separates us from God. He can’t look upon sin so he had to send Jesus to shed his blood and die to forgive us. The result is that when God looks at us, he sees Jesus instead. Basically, we got to put on Jesus-masks and Jesus-colored clothing to make God like us again. But that’s not how it actually is.

The truth about sin is that it kills us. The Bible is quite clear in both the Old Testament and New Testament that sin kills. Our loving heavenly Father doesn’t want us to die, or experience death, loss, and destruction in any area of our lives, so He sent Jesus to deliver us and set us free from sin and death. Nowhere in that gospel message is anything about God being unable to look upon us. In fact, in the Garden, the Father went searching for Adam and Even when He knew they had sinned so He could help protect and restore them. The Father’s wrath isn’t against mankind, but against everything that hinders us from His love.

The truth about sin is that it poisons our hearts. Sin in and of itself is a problem, but just as much of a problem is how it seeps its way into the deepest reaches of our hearts and whispers lies to us. It tells us that we are not good enough, and that we deserve judgment. We then begin to self-loathe and self-punish in our hearts for all of our failures, further letting death work within us. Not only that, but often those things we hate about ourselves are often activities that we are attracted to *because* of sin at work within us. Certainly the demonic realms are involved in all of this, but at the end of the day, sin entices us, accuses us, then kills us, bit by bit, day by day.

The truth about Jesus is that He isn’t half as concerned about sin as we are. He already paid for it all, for all mankind, for all time and eternity. There isn’t a single thing we can do now or in the future that He hasn’t already paid for. Sometimes it feels like when we first get saved we get set free from sin, but after we get saved there isn’t that same grace available anymore. Religion has taught us that when we sin it’s punishment time, and God is ready to put the smack-down on us. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We are told to come boldly before the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help (Hebrews 4:16). Our Heavenly Father wants us to come *to* him when we are in need, not hide from Him in our hearts. Jesus isn’t threatened by our sin because He already conquered it.

What does that look like? Ask Him what He thinks about you in the situation? If you are truly hearing the voice of the Father, it is not going to be condemning. Why? Because the truth about God is that He doesn’t condemn us. Romans 8:1-2 says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” If we are in Jesus, then there is no disapproval or criticism from the Father. Jesus even said to a woman who had been caught *in* adultery (which means they literally saw her having sex with someone, not just suspicion or hearsay) and was about to be stoned to death “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11). Jesus and the Father are exactly alike, so if Jesus doesn’t, then neither does He.

How might our perspective on things change if we stopped blaming ourselves when we sin? What if we stopped getting angry with ourselves when we mess up? What if we decided to change how we view ourselves and how we view sin? Instead of seeing it as “that evil thing that we are horrible people for doing”, what if we looked at it as “that thing that hurts me when I do it, so I have to get some antidote from Jesus when I get poisoned by it.” I believe God is shifting how the Church views sin—not because it isn’t harmful, but because God isn’t angry with us for it. The truth about sin is that it kills us, but God made a way through Jesus to set us free from the law of sin and death, to bring us into His glorious liberty!

Acts of Love, Service, and Sacrifice

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Valentines Day is one of my least favorite holidays, albeit nowhere close to my distaste for Halloween. While the idea behind it is literally lovely, I have a hard time matching up with the commercialized push to “do something” for your spouse and other loved ones else you don’t truly love them. I am horrible at keeping up with holidays to begin with (Exhibit A: three feet from me is my parents’ Christmas present that I still haven’t sent them and its now the middle of February), so having a holiday that comes just two weeks after my wedding anniversary is a recipe for failure. With all the commercial focus on loving one another, I want to take a moment and consider how God demonstrates His great love for us—through acts of love, service, and sacrifice.

In John 15:13, Jesus spoke to his disciples about love, saying “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In Ephesians 5:25-28, Paul speaks about how husbands should love their wives, saying “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” Jesus in John 13 even did a physical act of service, washing his disciples’ feet to demonstrate to them through both service and physical touch His great love for them. I find it interesting that in our commercialized world we are so focused on love as gift-giving of expensive items that we forget true demonstrations of love also include acts of service and sacrifice.

While it is true that each person has ways he or she gives and receives love best (check out The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman), God’s greatest gift of love was an act of service through personal sacrifice. And this wasn’t just an old sacrifice—it literally changed the course of humanity and shifted the balance in our favor, removing the death and decay from sin and ushering in the manifestation of abundant life God planned for us from the beginning of creation. However, it didn’t stop there. He gave us His Holy Spirit to continue that transformative work within us on an ongoing basis, speaking and releasing love to us every day. As it is written, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). If we want to consider how to spread that love best to one another, I believe it looks like every-day acts of love, service, and sacrifice, not as a one-time event.

These acts of love always have to be massive. How about the time when we don’t feel like turning the light off but our wife is also in bed next to us and doesn’t feel like it either. That time our wife wants a foot rub and we are exhausted, but instead of saying no, or even telling her we are tired, we just do it anyway. The time where for no reason whatsoever, and because of no special holiday pressuring us, we go out and get her some flowers or some other small something. That time we put down our electronic devices and purpose to fully listen to whatever it is she is saying without trying to solve the problem (guilty as charged). The time where we don’t feel like cuddling because we are tired, hot, cranky, don’t like it (not sure this one even exists), or whatever else, but that we hold her anyway (Mind you, these ideas can apply to women just as much as men, but I’m a dude, so that’s what you get). These are all little things, and the big things are good and important too, but it is acts of love, service, and sacrifice on a daily basis that truly do what God does–shed love abroad in our hearts.

If our job is to BE Christ to people, then we will look for ways to do that not just with our wives, but with our children, family, friends, and even coworkers. After all, in John 13:34-35 Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (emphasis mine). If all else fails, life happens, or the world falls apart, commercialization has no hold on the future, but we can never go wrong with acts of love, service, and sacrifice.

Staying The Course To Raise The Dead

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Some of you may be aware that a dear friend’s husband, Steve, died earlier this week. She, being a woman of faith, didn’t wait and wonder what to do—she began mustering up an army of prayer warriors to stand with her in faith to raise her husband back to life through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. I have been part of that process, and have attempted to keep the Raise The Dead Initiative and DRT groups on Facebook, as well as my own social media thread, updated with where we stand. At the time of writing this, he is not alive YET, so please continue to join us in prayer.

Last afternoon I found myself struggling with the situation, given that it’s been a day and a half and we have no clear results yet. It doesn’t help that I am on the far opposite side of the United States from where my friend and her husband are, so as much as I would like to be more involved, that is made more difficult. I found myself questioning whether it was “over” or not.

Truth be told, I was really struggling with this. When I set my faith toward something, I am pretty forceful about pushing it forward in both prayer and action. Finding myself at a point where I wasn’t sure if I should continue to pray or not was difficult, so I talked to my wife and a good friend both, to help me process what was going on inside me. When all was said and done, I decided that not only is it not over, but I know a woman whose husband is supposed to return to life and remain by her side!! I have a battle to fight!

We all go through periods of doubt when trying to raise the dead. This is entirely normal, and I attribute it largely to the subtle whisperings of the enemy trying to derail our faith, encourage doubt, and get us wallowing in grief, self-pity, regret, and other negative emotions. The key, I believe, is to recognize when these feelings arise, and then either entirely ignore them, shoving them aside until after the fact, or even acknowledge them, and prayerfully send them to the feet of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I believe that taking captive every though also includes taking captive our emotions. If I let myself continue thinking that “it’s over”, then my emotions will eventually line up with my thoughts, and once I do that, I have no room for faith.

I spent an hour and a half on the phone with my friend the night her husband died, as we and some other men and women of faith prayed over the body. I heard her crying at times, quite understandably, because the love of her life had just died. Yet I also knew that if she wanted to stay in a place of faith, she couldn’t let herself be overcome by grief either, so as we continued to pray, I encouraged her in her faith as well, decreeing again and again the will of God for his life, which is that he will live and not die. As I did this, it encouraged her to keep pressing forward as well. Don’t get me wrong—she isn’t weak of will by any means, but I cannot say I would fare any better if anything happened to my beautiful wife either. I would both want and need friends of faith to stand with me as well.

Managing one’s emotional state in this kind of situation is of utmost importance. Many people do not realize that emotions are actually tied into our ability to effectively release faith, as much if not more than our thoughts are. When I want to engage faith for something, I literally stir up my emotions to engage what I am believing for in my thoughts, so that my heart and mind are unified in prayer.

In this situation, I have been trying to listen to the Lord on an ongoing basis to hear what He is saying to me, to receive guidance and wisdom on how to effectively walk this out. All I keep hearing him say are things like “You’re doing great, Michael. You’re doing an awesome job.” When I woke up yesterday afternoon to get some chores done then head to work for the night, I wasn’t in that place, and it took a few hours to get my head settled on right. Why? I was having difficulty discerning what I was feeling.

When things get stressful, it can be hard to know whose voice we are listening to. We have to separate the voices of God, the enemy, and ourselves, and that takes discernment—which in and of itself requires a bit of wisdom. Fortunately, we have been given the Bible which is chock-full of verses that tell us how God works, what He thinks, and His will for us in such trying situations as this, and the more we understand how He thinks, the easier it is to use godly wisdom to discern who is speaking to us.

One of the things I keep reminding myself, and others, as we continue to pray for Steve to return to life, is this:

There is no plan B.

There are two possible outcomes in this situation:

Either my friend will bury her husband, or she will receive him back to life, raised by the power of God.

Obviously, we are aiming for the latter outcome, and the hard part is that only time will tell. There is no special way to know what is going to happen, and it can be maddening to watch, wait, and pray. Yet, that is our task—to pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

If this subject has touched you in some way, and you want to learn how you can engage God’s resurrection power for those in your life, check out the resources below. I highly recommend six things:

1. Sign up for our Raise the Dead Initiative mailing list here to receive updates, and connect further.

2. Get some books. I have written two books on the subject: Practical Keys to Raise the Dead and Faith to Raise the Dead. Practical Keys is a series of excerpts from Faith To Raise The Dead, all of which give practical advice for when you are actively praying to raise someone at that time. Faith To Raise The Dead goes more into theology, but has a chapter devoted to resurrection testimonies, an appendix in the back of faith-building scriptures to help you pray for the deceased to return to life, and I answer a lot of common and even difficult questions surrounding the subject.

Tyler Johnson, founder of the Dead Raising Team has written multiple books on the subject as well: How to Raise the Dead and The Dead Are Raised. Be sure to check out Father Hebert’s encouraging book Saints Who Raised The Dead for pages upon pages of uplifting testimonies about saints in history who have raised the dead in Jesus’ name.

3. Join the Raise the Dead Initiative on Facebook. The Raise the Dead Initiative is a group I started to help the Body of Christ grow in this area, and I will eventually develop an RDI teaching curriculum to train believers to pray for and raise the dead. You may also be interested in The Dead Raising Team (DRT) and Dead Raising Campaign Facebook groups.

4. Look at how you can host or attend a School of Resurrection in your area. Contact Tyler Johnson via his website at http://www.oneglance.org/ to arrange the event. Tyler is an awesome man of God and good friend who regularly teaches Schools of Resurrection to help transform our understanding on the subject of resurrection life. He has Dead Raising Teams around the world who are ready to mobilize in their area to release the abundant life of Jesus Christ. You can also head over to Gumroad to buy and download a complete Resurrection School audio series.

5. Watch/listen to David Hogan’s YouTube Series on the subject of Raising the Dead: Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4

6. Look for and actively engage opportunities to raise the dead in your area by reaching out to friends when you hear that someone has died.

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The Mechanism of a Vow

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A few weeks ago I was jumping on our trampoline with the grandgirls, when one of them, playing make-believe, announced that she was vowing something. I couldn’t even tell you what it was, nor what pretend game she was playing, but I immediately stopped her, then explained to all of them that they are never to make vows under any circumstances. This is uncommon, and unpopular, but I find it very important, and very scriptural. Most people make vows when they get married—my wife and I did not. If people understood vows, I believe they wouldn’t make them, ever, and believe the reason most people do is because they don’t understand the mechanism of a vow.

To explore this subject we need to look at what a vow is, what it does, and why we shouldn’t make them.

What is a Vow?

A vow is a promise that carries spiritual weight behind it. It is best understood as a legal contract that requires payment. Vows are agreements to perform some kind of action, and the payment is the action that the vow states one will do.

Numbers 30:2 says, “If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”

A vow is a binding obligation that requires one to do everything that he or she has stated in the vow, as it says above. Some other verses related to paying vows are as follows:

Psalm 50:14 “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High;”

Psalm 66:13 “I shall come into Your house with burnt offerings; I shall pay You my vows . . .”

Proverbs 7:14 “I was due to offer peace offerings; Today I have paid my vows.”

What Does A Vow do?

Because a vow is a legal agreement, it carries weight of authority behind it. If the vow is fulfilled, the person is released from it. If not, they reap the consequences of failing to fulfill the terms of the contract.

For this reason Deuteronomy 23:21-23 says, “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you. However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised.”

It is important to follow through and keep the vows we make, as they are legally binding in the spirit realm and the laws of the universe are designed to enforce the vows we make. A vow essentially creates a covenant between you and the cosmos, and the spiritual laws of the universe expect you to fulfill that which you have vowed. It is a bit like how nature abhors a vacuum—a vow is a bit like creating a vacuum, and nature expects you to fill it.

Why We Shouldn’t Make Vows

Jesus was very clear when he spoke about vows, as was James.

Matthew 5:33-37 says, “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

James 5:12 says, “Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.”

The reason James exhorts people not to make vows is that when you fail to fulfill the vow, you bring yourself under condemnation because you have broken a spiritual agreement. Jesus explained that we are not to swear oaths or vows for any reason because we don’t have control over making anything happen no matter how hard we try. Thus, if we say something we should simply make an effort to keep our word without creating spiritually binding legal contracts. If we do, we are playing into the plans of the enemy, as they will attempt to prevent us from fulfilling the terms, placing us under condemnation and giving them an easy ability to attack us.

There are some other passages that give us wisdom in regards to vow-making, or rather not making them at all.
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 says, When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.

Proverbs 20:25 – It is a trap for a man to say rashly, “It is holy!” And after the vows to make inquiry.

Malachi 1:14 “But cursed be the swindler who has a male in his flock and vows it, but sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord, for I am a great King,” says the LORD of hosts, “and My name is feared among the nations.”

These three verses show us that
1) it is better to not make a vow than to make it and fail it
2) It is foolish to make vows without knowing what you are getting into in advance
3) if you don’t follow through with your vow, you come under a curse.

Conclusion

When we understand that vows are a spiritual contract that legally binds us to either complete the vow or suffer under a curse which opens doors for the enemy to attack us via sin (the sin of breaking the vow), we will understand that making vows is foolishness. The mechanism of a vow is incredibly important. Consider the negative effects that can occur in one’s marriage if you make a vow that you end up breaking somewhere down the line. Will the judgments that the cosmos sends your way due to your actions help or hurt your marriage? How is making that vow actually going to help you be a good spouse if those things aren’t inside your heart already—and if they are inside your heart anyway, do you really need to make a vow?

Jesus and James both instructed people not to make vows for a reason. The simple solution is to not make them, no matter what tradition tells us we should do whether at a wedding or in any other situation. We must become people of integrity who are known for keeping our word. This is evidence of the fruit of the Spirit at work in our lives, and is our responsibility as sons and daughters of God.

How How To Get Free From Past Vows

Most people have already made vows sometime in the past, whether a “pledge” to a group or organization, even harmless ones like the Boy Scouts, or even to a nation. While personally I support my country, I don’t believe in pledges because they are simply a vow by another name. If you have already made vows and want to get free, it is usually fairly simple, and can be done in four easy steps through prayer.

1. Acknowledge that you made a vow

2. State that you repent (which means to change your thinking) from doing so.

3. Break agreement with the vow

4. Decree that the blood of Jesus makes it null and void and releases you from it.

In some cases, such as with Freemasonry, you may feel led by the Spirit to do more specific and in-depth prayer, but in most cases the above four steps should suffice. As with all things, pray as you feel led by God in the moment, and pay attention to other prompts you may feel such as praying over an article of clothing related to that group, or even destroying documents you may have signed your name to in a pledge. (Please note this does not apply to legal documents such as wills, mortgages, and such. I am only referring to those pledges and vows that are to groups and organizations, not legal agreements which are the equivalent of you putting your “yes” down on paper, and which you will need at a later date.)

You might pray this prayer or something similar:

Heavenly Father, I acknowledge that I have made vows to (the group or person you vowed) saying (state the actual promises you made if you can remember. If not, skip this part). I repent for making them, and choose according to your Word to no longer make vows, and let my “yes” stand alone. I break agreement and come out of alignment with those vows, and apply the blood of Jesus to cover and protect me. I decree that the blood of Jesus has already paid every penalty for breaking these vows, and I thank you Jesus for your shed blood that sets me free from every mistake. I receive the forgiveness and freedom that comes from you right now. Amen.

Christianity Versus Nudity

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I was talking to a friend a while back when we were doing some home-improvement projects. It was hot out and she asked if I minded if she took off her shirt as she had a somewhat sporty bra on (which I should mention covered more than many bathing suit tops do). I didn’t care and my wife was fine with it, but that launched us into a discussion about nudity and social appropriateness. This made me think later about nudism for believers, and why it would or would not be recommended as a practice/lifestyle for followers of Jesus.

The first knee-jerk reaction I can imagine many would have is “No! That is sin!” And maybe it is. That is certainly a real possibility. And maybe it isn’t. And maybe it just depends. And that is exactly what I was pondering, so let me bring you with me to review some of what I considered and where I ended up.

First, we know that in the beginning nudism was the norm. Eden as a whole was obviously comfortable to Adam and Eve, and I would suggest the way their bodies were made that they were impervious to injury or discomfort, having the ability to regulate their temperature, etc. to meet their needs at any time, making clothing entirely unnecessary. While much of that is speculative, for the first portion of Adam and Eve’s lives, clothing simply did not exist.

In fact, even after they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, observed they were naked, and then hid out of shame, God didn’t actually complain a single time about their nakedness. He simply asked them “Who told you that you were naked? (Genesis 3:11) God was entirely unconcerned about their nakedness. What He was bothered by was the fact that they were bothered by it, especially since that was a symptom of a deeper problem—their sin.

As I consider all of the various sex and sex-related issues that exist in our world—lust, homosexuality and transgenderism, rape, pedophilia and varying other kinds of deviant sexual behavior, and more, I cannot help but consider that the Church’s stance has largely been reactionary. “Avoid all of these things and you should be able to avoid sexual sin” is typically the Church’s go-to modus operandi. On the one hand that’s not a bad idea, in that we collectively teach self-discipline, however ineffective it often may be. Self-discipline is a healthy skill to possess, so that’s not bad in and of itself. However, the problem is that self-discipline isn’t enough by itself, and that is often what the Church brings to the table. If you discipline yourself enough, talk with other people of similar gender to keep yourself “accountable”, and avoid areas where you might give in to weakness, and pray a lot about it, that should be sufficient.

Again, I’m not just bashing on the church, because most of those above (minus the accountability one) are actually really good ideas. For example, avoiding hanging out with people who do drugs because of a propensity to do drugs with them is just wisdom. Assuming people are going to tell the truth to an accountability group, however, is probably a little naive. I suggest what we need is a different approach.

What if we were to proactively teach people how to respect and appreciate their bodies in all of its nude form? If we weren’t so incredibly prude about it to the point of body-shaming when we think too much skin is shown, we might help people, especially kids, develop a healthy self-image early on which would reduce sexual problems down the road. After all, nudism isn’t about being sexual—it’s about not being ashamed of being unclothed whether alone or around other people, and preferring that state due to physical comfort. Anyone who believes pure nudism has anything to with sexuality is misinformed.

Certainly being around others in the nude gives one the ability to lust or whatever else, but that’s part of the Church’s problem—we are so focused on the potential negatives that we completely ignore the possible positives. What if, instead of worrying so much about how someone might negatively lust, we were to teach people that it’s okay to enjoy physical beauty and that it doesn’t HAVE to be sexual? As a nurse, I see naked people all the time. ALL the time. To be honest, probably around 98% of them don’t really have bodies I consider lust-worthy anyway. Another way of saying it is that most people aren’t all that attractive in the nude, so the idea that we are going to go into some sort of sexual craze when unclothed around others is silly. Furthermore, nudism doesn’t have to be a social thing.

A small portion of nudists are social; most we will never know about. For some, they enjoy simply wearing little or no clothing in the privacy of their own home and would have no intention of doing so in public. In fact, while I am not a betting person, I am sure that I would win the bet if I were to assume that a number of readers fall into that category—those who enjoy some level of private nudism but no one else knows about it because it’s just that—private.

Much of what decides this issue for each person has to do with what he or she deems appropriate. Well, appropriateness is cultural, which is something else to remember. The United States is one of the more reserved when it comes to bathing suits, especially for men, whereas in other countries, such as in Europe or South America, it is entirely normal for men to wear bikinis or bikini briefs or similar—a far cry from the nearly-shin-length board shorts that are the current trend. In some places in Europe, it is entirely normal for women to go topless, and no one thinks a thing of it because it is a cultural norm. While the Western Church is typically aghast at this behavior, again, it isn’t inherently right or wrong any more than some aboriginal dude wearing basically nothing more than a thong as his daily-wear is inherently wrong. It’s just a different culture with unique cultural norms—and in such a setting, they too have ideas of what is appropriate and inappropriate, but they would just be vastly different than what you or I might be used to.

I believe the underlying issue that many believers have with nudism isn’t actually about the practice itself, but reflect their own underlying insecurities, fear, shame, and sexual issues. I’m not saying that nudism is the solution to all of life’s sexual problems, because it isn’t. On the other hand, if I had children of my own I would seriously consider raising them in such a way as to at least be comfortable around others in appropriate settings while in the nude because I believe that minimizing the shame, fear, and insecurity of nudity growing up leads to an overall healthier perspective when it comes to dealing with sexual appetites as an adult. It is my hope that believers as a whole can stop vilifying the human body as though it were inherently evil, and I believe that if we truly want to get at some of the behavioral aspects of sexual immortality, a healthy dose of nudism might just be what some people need.

I should point out, in closing, that at the end of the day the only real solution to sexual problems is the Holy Spirit, the one who is responsible for leading and guiding us into all truth. Romans 8 explains that as we walk by the Spirit we simply will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Behavioral discipline such as that which I believe healthy nudity can provide is just a piece to the puzzle, or maybe a step in the right direction, but the transformative power of God is at the end of the day the only true solution to the issue of sexual perversions, lusts, and immorality. Regardless of how you manage your own sexual health, I encourage you to continue to be led deeper into communion with God by the Spirit of God, because as you do, you will understand and experience the true freedom found therein. Blessings!

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Domestic Violence in the Church

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A few years back, a family member, a Christian, had to divorce her husband. At first glance that sounds horrible, but did I mention that he physically beat her regularly, and emotionally abused both her and the children? Just in the past two days, my wife and I rescued a neighbor from a lengthy period of domestic violence including both physical and sexual abuse. The Western Church as a whole is very unhealthy in regards to how we deal with both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, so I’m going to share some of my own observations from walking out an almost ten year process alongside this family member. Domestic Violence is evil.

1) The Church is historically terrible when it comes to dealing with Domestic Violence (DV). Pastors can be some of the worst advice-givers in these situations, often putting the victim in significant danger by telling them they have to stay in the marriage. Depending on who you talk to, the victim should have stayed in the marriage and “made it work,” in spite of the physical and psychic harm to his or her person and to the children. After all, marriage is an unbreakable covenant, and to divorce for anything less than marital unfaithfulness, aka adultery, is adultery, right? Wrong. Consider that abuse of any kind is about as unfaithful as someone can get. This is not a demonstration of love, but of a need for power. The Bible says that we husbands are to love our wives and treat them just like Christ did the Church, laying His life down for her (Ephesians 5:25). Abuse is the opposite of that, absorbing the victim’s emotional energy like a soul-sucking vampire in order to feel empowered.

Christians often tell DV victims to just pray and hope that God continues to work on the spouse’s heart, in spite of the fact that the spouse’s heart is hardened and not very open to the life-changing power of God. Mind you, God is more than capable of transforming anyone’s heart, hard or not, but you can just as easily pray for him or her from a safe distance as you can while in the middle of abuse. Bible-thumping people into staying in a dangerous, even life-threatening situation is not the will of God as outlined in scripture, and if you are telling someone otherwise, you are in opposition to God; working as a pawn of Satan in this area. Religion is not a reason to remain in abuse. If anything, it is the holy empowerment to find freedom from it. Anyone who tells you otherwise has a religion you should have nothing to do with. Run from it.

I have some friends who I love dearly, but their “solution” to the problem was to occasionally remind us that God’s desire was to restore the marriage, and then they would cite all the situations they knew of where it happened for someone else. That’s wonderful and all, but when in the middle of dealing with the actual problem, “restoration” is the last thing on anyone’s mind. Safety and security are the starting point to a long road to recovery, and if God wants to restore somewhere in that process, He is well able to do so, but it’s not an appropriate focus, especially not when the victim is still being victimized. God will work out those details down the road if He so chooses.

2) Domestic violence of any kind, whether physical, mental, or sexual, is abuse. Period. It is not earned, welcomed, or deserved, and it is never the victim’s fault. An abuser gains inner power and well-being from the mistreatment of others. The behaviors of the attacker are not the fault of the victim, no matter how many times someone says otherwise. This is important because most likely the abuser has gradually brainwashed the victim into believing that the victim IS the one at fault for the abuse he or she receives.

3) Domestic violence can occur to either gender, by either gender. While yes, it is predominantly a male-attacker female-victim, that is NOT always the case. Don’t make assumptions, and don’t treat a male victim like he should have been strong enough to act differently. He’s a man after all, right? No, that is a societal message that has no basis in reality, much less in an abuse-scenario. Don’t kick a victim while he is down just to perpetuate an unhealthy social message.

4) DV can be deadly. If the victim doesn’t leave early on, it usually takes a long time for him or her to leave the relationship, and sometimes they never do. Sometimes, even if they leave, they go back into the abusive situation. I believe the statistic is that the average number of times for a victim to leave and then RETURN to the abuser is somewhere around seventeen times before they either leave for good or are killed. A portion of all DV encounters WILL end in the death of the victim.

I will say this to anyone and everyone who is in an abusive situation, whether you are thinking about leaving or not. First, do it and get yourself and your family safe. You may not be dead now, but there’s always another day, another opportunity for violence to escalate, and you never know when the tipping point will come. It might have started with emotional abuse only, but eventually it will progress, and one day you might not be around to tell the tale. It took my family member narrowly escaping being strangled to death before they got the courage up to leave.

5) DV victimization is a VERY big deal not just for the present, but for the future. Consider that when children are involved, this sets up an unhealthy cycle for them in the future, predisposing them to either be the victim again as an adult, or an attacker of someone else. The abused rejoin the cycle as either abused or abuser, and the cycle continues for yet another generation. One of the most important things a family member or friend can do is to be a safe and significant role model in that child’s life to help break the cycle of abuse.

6) At the same time the abuse is not the victim’s fault, staying in the relationship IS his or her fault. Keep in mind that while I say this, it is a sort of double-edged sword and/or there are two sides to the situation, so bear with me. I will go into signs of abuse in a bit, which includes loss of resources to escape, which is part of why people stay—they don’t feel they have a way out. Also, if children are involved the abuser will frequently threaten to take the children away forever via full custody and/or kidnap, and/or harm the children in some way if the victim does not comply. This fear is crippling in many cases, which is a major reason why the victim does not leave, and this is something that outside observers need to understand. This is one side of the why-they-stayed blame issue.

On the other hand, it is entirely normal if family members and friends are angry as to why he or she stayed in the abuse. I know I have felt this way. At the end of the day, the abuse is not the victim’s fault, but remaining in the relationship is, and no amount of justifying or explaining the reasons for staying absolves the victim of this key responsibility, especially if children are involved. This is an unpopular thing to say, especially in circles dealing with therapy and recovery, because, referring back to my first point about the abuse not being the victim’s fault, this kind of statement tends to put blame back on the victim.

Here’s where things get hairy though. The abuse isn’t the victim’s fault, but no one else can make them leave either. In my situation, my wife and I provided ongoing support to this individual, to the point that we eventually provided secret emergency cash and a burner phone to help ensure they were able to get out safely, and eventually we did pick the kids up at midnight one night when the cops were called, and from there everything went gradually uphill. The kicker is that we had the children staying with us every other weekend anyway, so at any point in time the individual could have left, knowing they were safe with us. This was a point of significant anger and frustration for me, not because the abuse was the victim’s fault and not because they weren’t already being brainwashed into what is called “learned helplessness”, because they were. It was that we provided opportunity time and time again, even when we didn’t quite recognize the signs, and yet it took over five years to go from the start of the abuse to the time this individual left, having produced multiple children in the process—children whom I love dearly, and who would not have become co-victims of the abuse if the main victim had left sooner.

As someone who was involved in the rescue process, and also was in family relationships with both the victim and abuser, it is important to recognize that the victim isn’t the only one affected by the abuse. The domestic violence happening elsewhere in the family negatively altered entire YEARS of my life. Even though I wasn’t the victim, I still had to deal with the abuser on an ongoing basis, and yes, even though much of that time I didn’t know the abuse was happening, all of the common relational problems surrounding the situation were both noticeable and highly problematic, and the resulting years of climbing out of the issue after the fact have been ongoing. My wife and I have probably fought more in our marriage over that relationship and resulting negatives from it than all of our other marriage squabbles combined. The direct victim ends up only being the main victim—everyone else pays a price too.

7) After leaving the abuser, the recovery process begins. This is a long process, and needs to be treated as such. Breaking the silence is the first step to recovery, because the abuser made sure to keep the victim silent about the abuse. He or she must be able to talk about it in a safe place. This is where the “not the victim’s fault” piece comes in again. If you are angry as to why they stayed, talk to someone else about it in the short term. You can discuss it with the victim later, as they get through some of their own process and de-programming from victimization. If you can continue to be a safe place, you will help the victim heal much faster than if you toss blame at them left and right, even if some of it is warranted.

Another important key in the recovery process is staying out of other dating and/or marriage relationships. I have seen more than one situation where the victim gets out of one situation only to end up in another, similar situation. Why? Because their same inner patterns that helped attract the abuser the first time are still in play. Unless significant inner healing occurs, the victim will simply attract a second abuser.

This attraction issue is very real because it is part of how the laws of the universe were set up. Another more “Christian” term for it is sowing and reaping, but it involves releasing our hopes, dreams, fears, doubts, and judgments into the cosmos. In the same way that we are co-creators with God, we co-create our reality through sowing and reaping. When I say we attract something, this is literally what happens. Mind you, we are not the only ones doing the attracting—everyone is. An abuser attracts a victim just as much as most victims attract an abuser. This is not always the case, but it is probably true for the majority of situations. It is unconscious, however, on the part of the victim, and thus not something he or she knew to avoid. This is why it is so important to go through inner healing to change those inner messages and beliefs and resolve inner wounds. Otherwise, the risk of entering a new abuse-situation is very high. I watched what happened to my family member after they remarried shortly after the divorce was finalized, and I can say that about 95% of the situation remained the same with the new spouse, minus the physical abuse. If you don’t take time to heal, you will pay the price yet again. Unfortunately, the rest of the family gets to go along for the ride, so whether we want to be involved or not, we often get dragged in yet again. Please, if you are a victim of domestic violence or any other form of abuse, do yourself, your children, and the rest of your family and friends a favor. Take time to heal, and take a long time to heal before getting into a new relationship. I suggest a minimum of 2-3 years before even considering the possibility of seeing someone new.

8) Some basic signs of abuse:
The abuser typically isolates the victim from family and friends, oftentimes also separating them from money and any other assets that might aide in their escape. If you are watching a family member slowly draw inward, makes excuses for why their cell phone never works, doesn’t have any money ever, and things just feel sketchy, this may be why. It is a common pattern, and is specifically done this way to keep the victim powerless. He or she may also not like to go swimming in the summer, wear sleeveless shirts, or do anything else that causes skin to be exposed. Unless he or she is taking a medication that causes skin sensitivity to sunlight, it can be a sign of being beaten, and the clothing is to hide the bruises.
If a child starts getting more secretive about their body, acting strangely, begins getting regular urinary tract infections, or starts just having more “family secrets” in general, these are all potential signs of abuse, and should alert you to pay more attention and to start looking for corroborating signs. I witnessed signs of abuse with the kids involved for a good year or two before I realized what they were. It was only as we were already getting the kids to safety that some of the strange behaviors started to make sense and it all clicked. As a nurse I have been taught to report abuse when I see it, but it can be easier to spot it at work when I have the “nurse-hat” on than in an outside situation. It is easy to read about signs of abuse, but much harder to see them in your own surroundings.

This is a longer post than normal, but the information I have shared here is of utmost importance. The Church of Jesus Christ cannot sit back and watch idly as our family, friends, and even other church members go through abuse without getting involved. Often the victims won’t want your involvement, but that doesn’t matter. You may save someone’s life by speaking up. And if your version of “speaking up” is to tell the victim to remain a victim, then you are part of the problem. Matthew 18:6 and Luke 17:2 both say, spoken by Jesus himself, that it is better to drown yourself than it is to drag a child down into a bad situation. I suggest that if we were to continue with Jesus’ analogy, encouraging someone to stay in an abusive marriage, especially when kids are involved, is a self-drownable offense. While I am not suggesting anyone go drown themselves (really, don’t), just don’t be that person Jesus was talking about. When in doubt, just be like Jesus—he was always the solution, never a contributor to the problem.

If you are being abused or suspect someone else is a victim of domestic violence, here are some resources you can turn to:

The National Domestic Violence Hotline:
Open 24/7
1-800-799-7233
1-800-787-3224 (TTY for Deaf/hard of hearing)
website: http://www.thehotline.org/about-us/contact/

The National Sexual Assault Hotline
https://www.rainn.org/
Hotline: 800.656.HOPE (4673)
Online chat hotline: https://hotline.rainn.org/online/terms-of-service.jsp
To learn more about the hotlines: https://www.rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline

Volunteers of America: Oregon
Resources: https://www.voaor.org/other-resources-for-domestic-violence-survivors
(If you aren’t from Oregon, this group should still be able to refer you to somewhere that can help you better)

Finally, there is always 9-1-1 or the phone number to your local police department. I encourage and even implore you to speak up. Break The Silence.

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