"Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us; look, and behold our reproach! Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, and our houses to foreigners. We have become orphans and waifs, our mothers are like widows. We pay for the water we drink, and our wood comes at a price. They pursue at our heels. We labor and have no rest." - Lamentations 5:1-5
The book of Lamentations has become one of the most relevant books in the Bible to me. I hardly read from it in my pastoring years. But after what I have experienced over the last half decade, this book has become one of the most powerful books in the entire bible to me.
If you don't know what this book is about, I'll give you the very brief nutshell summary of it:
If you don't know what this book is about, I'll give you the very brief nutshell summary of it:
The prophet Jeremiah is lamenting over Israel's physical and spiritual condition following Jerusalem's destruction by Babylon. What was once considered impossible by God's people is now a nightmarish reality and the great city of Jerusalem stands in ruins. The entire book of Lamentations is Jeremiah's divinely inspired reaction to the aftermath of God's judgment on His stiff-necked and hard hearted people.
As I said, this book has become particularly personal for me. In fact, it was a single verse in the first chapter of this book that started me on my return course back to God.
If you were to look up the definition of the words "stubborn", "stiff-necked", or "hard-hearted" at any time over the last 10 or 15 years, the only descriptives for those words would have been my picture. As I look back at my attitude and perspective during my final years in full-time ministry I am constantly amazed at how blinded I became to my pride and selfishness. One of the worst things that can happen to a child of God is for them to become a victim of another believer's carnal actions. As a young pastor, I had plenty of reasons to play the victim card and I did at every opportunity.
The problem with living our lives as a professional victim is it is impossible to have any kind of meaningful relationship with anyone. We're all about us when we embrace a victim mentality. No one has hurt like we have hurt. No one can feel what we feel. No amount of sympathy or empathy can match our pain. No other perspective than ours has any value to us. We are hurting and we don't want to hear anything from anyone that does not empower us to continue wallowing in our hurts and pains. At the risk of being cold and blunt, professional victims are the most selfish, self-centered narcissists on the planet; of whom I was chief.
At the core of my hurt was my assumption that God had lied to me. I believed whole-heartedly that God had abandoned me in the hour of my greatest need. That assumption and the disillusionment that followed was devastating to my faith; to say nothing of any meaningful relationship with Him. The more I gave myself to my anger and bitterness, the more marginalized God became in my life until He eventually entered mythological status in my heart and mind.
That's right. A pastor of Jesus Christ found himself at a point where he did not believe in the existence of God anymore.
The scripture I've quoted above has a phrase in verse five that I want to focus on with you for a bit. The phrase is "we labor and have no rest". If I could encapsulate the last 6 years of my life in one sentence, the last six words of Lamentations 5:5 flawlessly capture where being a professional victim brought me.
Since stepping down from full-time pastoral ministry in 2009, I have worked in four different secular positions. Without exception, I have not worked harder for less personal benefit than I have in each of these positions. From 2009 to now, I have never been this financially strapped in my adult life. I have literally not stopped working over the last 5 years. I have had no leisure time, no vacations, or any rest for over half a decade. Each of these years has been a grind unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.
Now, before any of you conclude I'm whining about losing my gravy-train job, I want to take you back to the setting of Lamentations. The reason why Jerusalem stood in ruins wasn't because of Babylon's superior military strength. Israel's history is pregnant with tales of their overcoming superior forces by the power of God. The reason why Babylon was able to destroy Jerusalem was because of Israel's hard-hearted choices and stiff-necked decisions to reject God and embrace their selfish, pride-filled lusts.
Jeremiah isn't whining about Israel's military defeat or the hardness of losing a military battle. Jeremiah is lamenting the loss of Israel's identity as God's people. Jeremiah is weeping over God's absence from Israel's hard-hearts. God's prophet is crying over the broken relationship between God and His chosen people.
This is what playing the victim card produced in my life. I lost my identity as a child of God. Please understand, I'm not saying I lost my position as His child; losing our salvation is impossible (if you disagree with that point, save your emails. You won't win this one with me). I'm saying I lost my identity. My pain and bitterness had so consumed me that I completely forgot who I was. I lost sight of the fact that I am a child of the King of kings and Lord of lords. I was so focused on my victimhood that I forgot my priesthood as a member of God's courts. I was so committed to protecting myself from any future hurts that I stripped myself of the armor God provides us and entered the wilderness naked. In short, I became lion food, not because of the actions of those who hurt me but solely because of my choice to stay angry at them.
Because of my decision to stay a victim, I entered a restless season of hardships and destruction that threatened everything I have; including my relationship with my family. What I once thought was impossible had become a nightmarish reality and my family stood in ruins...because of me.
Jesus made an amazing statement during his teaching ministry that I want to conclude this blog entry with. At the end of Matthew 11, Jesus prayed a prayer of thanksgiving to His Father for hiding his teachings "from the wise and prudent" and instead revealed His truths "to babes". He then makes an incredible proclamation about divine revelation that God's people would do well to dive into and meditate on.
Finally, Jesus introduces a concept that most tenured church attendees are very familiar with. Jesus instructs His disciples and anyone who will listen to him to "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is this divine rest that I want to speak to you about. The old saying "you never know what you have until you lose it" has never been more relevant in my life than in discussing the rest God provides His people.
I'm not talking about a cessation of activity. If you look closely at the very next verse, Jesus speaks of yoking up with Him. A yoke is a symbol of work. There is no other purpose for a yoke than to join beasts of burden together for the purpose of plowing a field, pulling a wagon, or any number of labor-intensive things.
So God's offer is not to give us a life of leisure and ease. What He wants to provide us with is a labor that benefits everyone involved in the work. Rather than becoming an employee of a company where our labors bring the most benefit to the company owners, God wants to send us into His kingdom fully equipped to do "the work of the ministry" that He has called us to. He wants to give us our purpose and send us into the world not to just perform labor but to fulfill our calling. God wants to do more than give us a job; he wants to give us the reason for our existence.
Does any of this sound like something you'd be interested in? If it does, you had better pay attention to Matthew 11:29. We will never, and I do mean NEVER, discover our divinely revealed purpose without first yoking up with Christ. I'm not talking about church attendance or busy work in a church setting. All of that is fine and good, but in time busy work becomes a chore to perform and church attendance can become a duty to endure.
What Christ offers is the gift of His grace and favor on whatever we put our hands to do because we are doing what He is blessing instead of asking Him to bless what we are doing.
What Christ is talking about is developing a relationship with him that goes beyond church attendance, beyond ministry work, beyond anything we've ever experienced before.
What Christ wants to do is teach you how to literally follow Him. He wants to empower us to do battle with the enemy of our souls. He wants to equip us to walk worthy of the vocation He has called us to. He doesn't want to just employ us, he wants to deploy us.
But He cannot do any of this until we have 'learned of Him'. He will not deploy poorly trained soldiers into the field of battle. He cannot use selfish, pride-filled saints who don't know how to listen to His voice or obey His commands. He knows as much as anyone what selfish saints become over time.
They become victims.
There is nothing more deadly to a believer's faith than becoming a victim.
There is nothing that will destroy your world faster than letting the enemy transform you into a professional victim.
There is nothing more exhausting than selfish living. I know. I've got over a decade of experience laboring without any rest.
But praise God, for those of us who choose to yoke up with Christ and refuse to harden our hearts, there is something that every one of us desperately needs waiting for us...
At the core of my hurt was my assumption that God had lied to me. I believed whole-heartedly that God had abandoned me in the hour of my greatest need. That assumption and the disillusionment that followed was devastating to my faith; to say nothing of any meaningful relationship with Him. The more I gave myself to my anger and bitterness, the more marginalized God became in my life until He eventually entered mythological status in my heart and mind.
That's right. A pastor of Jesus Christ found himself at a point where he did not believe in the existence of God anymore.
The scripture I've quoted above has a phrase in verse five that I want to focus on with you for a bit. The phrase is "we labor and have no rest". If I could encapsulate the last 6 years of my life in one sentence, the last six words of Lamentations 5:5 flawlessly capture where being a professional victim brought me.
Since stepping down from full-time pastoral ministry in 2009, I have worked in four different secular positions. Without exception, I have not worked harder for less personal benefit than I have in each of these positions. From 2009 to now, I have never been this financially strapped in my adult life. I have literally not stopped working over the last 5 years. I have had no leisure time, no vacations, or any rest for over half a decade. Each of these years has been a grind unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life.
Now, before any of you conclude I'm whining about losing my gravy-train job, I want to take you back to the setting of Lamentations. The reason why Jerusalem stood in ruins wasn't because of Babylon's superior military strength. Israel's history is pregnant with tales of their overcoming superior forces by the power of God. The reason why Babylon was able to destroy Jerusalem was because of Israel's hard-hearted choices and stiff-necked decisions to reject God and embrace their selfish, pride-filled lusts.
Jeremiah isn't whining about Israel's military defeat or the hardness of losing a military battle. Jeremiah is lamenting the loss of Israel's identity as God's people. Jeremiah is weeping over God's absence from Israel's hard-hearts. God's prophet is crying over the broken relationship between God and His chosen people.
This is what playing the victim card produced in my life. I lost my identity as a child of God. Please understand, I'm not saying I lost my position as His child; losing our salvation is impossible (if you disagree with that point, save your emails. You won't win this one with me). I'm saying I lost my identity. My pain and bitterness had so consumed me that I completely forgot who I was. I lost sight of the fact that I am a child of the King of kings and Lord of lords. I was so focused on my victimhood that I forgot my priesthood as a member of God's courts. I was so committed to protecting myself from any future hurts that I stripped myself of the armor God provides us and entered the wilderness naked. In short, I became lion food, not because of the actions of those who hurt me but solely because of my choice to stay angry at them.
Because of my decision to stay a victim, I entered a restless season of hardships and destruction that threatened everything I have; including my relationship with my family. What I once thought was impossible had become a nightmarish reality and my family stood in ruins...because of me.
Jesus made an amazing statement during his teaching ministry that I want to conclude this blog entry with. At the end of Matthew 11, Jesus prayed a prayer of thanksgiving to His Father for hiding his teachings "from the wise and prudent" and instead revealed His truths "to babes". He then makes an incredible proclamation about divine revelation that God's people would do well to dive into and meditate on.
Finally, Jesus introduces a concept that most tenured church attendees are very familiar with. Jesus instructs His disciples and anyone who will listen to him to "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is this divine rest that I want to speak to you about. The old saying "you never know what you have until you lose it" has never been more relevant in my life than in discussing the rest God provides His people.
I'm not talking about a cessation of activity. If you look closely at the very next verse, Jesus speaks of yoking up with Him. A yoke is a symbol of work. There is no other purpose for a yoke than to join beasts of burden together for the purpose of plowing a field, pulling a wagon, or any number of labor-intensive things.
So God's offer is not to give us a life of leisure and ease. What He wants to provide us with is a labor that benefits everyone involved in the work. Rather than becoming an employee of a company where our labors bring the most benefit to the company owners, God wants to send us into His kingdom fully equipped to do "the work of the ministry" that He has called us to. He wants to give us our purpose and send us into the world not to just perform labor but to fulfill our calling. God wants to do more than give us a job; he wants to give us the reason for our existence.
Does any of this sound like something you'd be interested in? If it does, you had better pay attention to Matthew 11:29. We will never, and I do mean NEVER, discover our divinely revealed purpose without first yoking up with Christ. I'm not talking about church attendance or busy work in a church setting. All of that is fine and good, but in time busy work becomes a chore to perform and church attendance can become a duty to endure.
What Christ offers is the gift of His grace and favor on whatever we put our hands to do because we are doing what He is blessing instead of asking Him to bless what we are doing.
What Christ is talking about is developing a relationship with him that goes beyond church attendance, beyond ministry work, beyond anything we've ever experienced before.
What Christ wants to do is teach you how to literally follow Him. He wants to empower us to do battle with the enemy of our souls. He wants to equip us to walk worthy of the vocation He has called us to. He doesn't want to just employ us, he wants to deploy us.
But He cannot do any of this until we have 'learned of Him'. He will not deploy poorly trained soldiers into the field of battle. He cannot use selfish, pride-filled saints who don't know how to listen to His voice or obey His commands. He knows as much as anyone what selfish saints become over time.
They become victims.
There is nothing more deadly to a believer's faith than becoming a victim.
There is nothing that will destroy your world faster than letting the enemy transform you into a professional victim.
There is nothing more exhausting than selfish living. I know. I've got over a decade of experience laboring without any rest.
But praise God, for those of us who choose to yoke up with Christ and refuse to harden our hearts, there is something that every one of us desperately needs waiting for us...
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