Speaking Truth

by 

Mike Hamilton

We are called to love others while dying for them.  I should be able to stop the blog right there.  Except just like Satan in the garden, our world has subtly lied to us.  Political Correctness, a form of lying, has lured us into the idea that it is better to tell partial truths and keep everyone happy than it is to speak Truth.  I'm not a Pharisee, I'm not here to tell you that if you lie to your wife and tell her you love her new hair but inside you know it looks terrible that you are a terrible sinner.  And if we can just for a moment or two while I'm speaking about this topic lay aside the idea of sin....or we may become lost.  What I am writing about tonight is the importance of speaking Truth to those who you are called to Love.  Without Truth your offering of "love" is no love at all.  It is the world's substitute for Love which leads to dead things.  Dead relationships, dead intimacy, dead heart movement, even in some ways a dead Gospel.  

Truth is tied more to Love than to the Law of "doing it right because we are supposed to do it right".  I saw a tweet last night that said "If you don't honor your mother or father how will you raise kids who will honor you? #reapwhatyousow.  The man who tweeted this is a well known pastor, but unfortunately he is well known for speaking harsh truth from harsh places leading to harsh reactions.  It might play well for publicity but its never received as a grace filled offering that leads you to be thirsty for a God who would know you and love you.  The tweet he sent suggests something that I'm not sure he can back up biblically, a harsh God who is waiting for you to screw up so He can put it on your head ten fold.  There are so many variables that go into why someone would be in that position that stating it that way is nothing short of irresponsible.  What about abused kids who are now adults?  What about kids who were neglected?  Not loved well?  Children who were treated as a nuisance?  My point is, the next part of the scripture speaks to the parents responsibility to the children...statements such as this are divisive, not grace oriented nor Loving.  

When we are speaking Truth into people's lives we have to be willing to be powerless in the midst of doing so.  Yes, POWERLESS.  We seem to be able to lovingly tell a lie or very boldly and harshly speak "truth", but no one seems to be able to speak Truth without bucking up for it.  If Truth does not come from a tender loving place from within your heart, it is better left unsaid.  (mind you we are talking deep hard topics that are a part of a healthy intimate relationship, not "your dress is pretty").  Truth spoken out of Love often leaves the speaker feeling weak, fearing rejection or retaliation.  And the loving thing to do in response to those feelings?  Lay down your swords, pull of your armor....allow that person to do what they may.  As a counselor I have the very odd job of having to love my clients well in ways that not only disturb their wounded hearts but also disturbs them in ways that may make them want to leave.  Spoken Truths do not often set well with people who want to remain in control of their hearts and lives for their own gain.  

We are all called to do this and trust me it can feel awful, it can actually feel more like Death than a dead relationship or dead intimacy.  It is an active, vulnerable place where you are exchanging everything good for an unknown response from the receiver.  But this much you can count on, I have never spoken hard things into a person's life and heart from a loving place and regretted it.  It almost always leads to tears, connection, brokenness, safety, heart movement.  Most people hedge their bets on safe interactions that rob them of life and purpose, settling into a life of existence....disrupting this life strategy is courageous, disruption through lovingly telling someone what is real.  It almost never feels like Life when we begin to enter those waters with someone we care for but I have never entered and not found Life there.  It is worth it, the people you love are worth it.....even if it is messy and scary and dark....you will find Him there, even if the people you are speaking to do not follow.  

Marriage

Marriage

by

Mike Hamilton

When I do premarital or marital counseling I always start with one easy question, "Help me list the reasons you are getting or are married".  The list is always the same with some small variation as to the order of the answers.  Love, God, wanted children, financial security, buy a home, travel, we love the same things, want to do ministry, we have fun, we get a long well, our families liked our spouse.  This is almost always the list.  Maybe God is first and Love is second, but to some degree I could almost have this pre-written on my white board.  Some pre-marital couples list off, in addition to these, how much scripture of marriage they've studied, reasons why they are going to make it in marriage etc.  By the third or fourth answer I get a smile creeping across my face and they begin to realize they have willingly entered into a trap.  My problem with this list?  This isn't even remotely God's list for marriage.  

God has many purposes for marriage but one of the greatest is that our marriage is an example of the marriage between Christ and His church (His bride).  God's list is far deeper than ours and costs more than both of the spouses have in their account.  When we say "I do" we are signing the deed on a house that costs 5.5 million dollars and payment is due after the honeymoon.  Marriage is this big and it calls on resources that are not in us and certainly not at our disposal.  Look at the Cross for a moment, what Jesus did for His bride. . .He died for her while she was not inclined to do the same.  In other words, He was willing to give up His life when His bride hated Him, didn't Love Him, didn't agree with Him, wanted something different than He did. . .does this sound familiar in your marriage? This is when arguments start, lines get drawn, bunkers are entered and we begin to strategize to destroy our spouse.......instead of be destroyed as Christ was.

 God's list would be something like "Die for your spouse when they are not, give Grace, allow them to KNOW you, grow in humility, call them to live in Truth and reality, forsake comfort for the good of the marriage, pursue each other's heart, defend the marriage from ALL threats, the marriage is more important than anything else under God, allow each other to be who they are, do not change what God is changing, Love them well to the exclusion of your own agenda....."  His list is infinite but you get the idea.  Not one person goes to the altar with this in mind.  Not one.  But as soon as we are married God begins the real purpose of marriage, Sanctification.  He wants this union to grind and cut and sand away the things we have held onto that keep our hearts in charge of our world.  An angry man will be taught how to be tender, a voiceless wife will be taught how to be brave, a "little boy" who lacks the qualities of a man will be taught how to be a warrior for his wife...and the list keeps growing.  

God's purpose for our marriage is not for us to be happy.  It isn't for our bank accounts to be more secure.  He never promises marriage to be free of suffering, in fact it seems to multiply it.  God is taking two broken people who refuse to see their brokenness and forcing them into a relationship that will expose that brokenness.  The marriages that worry me the most?  The ones that appear to be perfect.  When I meet a couple who have been married 10 or 20 years and claim "We've never had problems"....THAT is a problem.  Sanctification is scary, it hurts, it is out of our control and God is perfectly capable of pushing buttons in us with our spouses that we never knew existed.  So when your marriage begins to have problem, put the broom away, don't sweep it under the carpet so that you both don't acknowledge them. . .these are the very problems that are inviting you to the Freedom marriage holds for our most wounded places, but to get there we must enter into the mess that is our REAL marriage.  The most hope I have for a couple is when they come to me and say "We've realized we don't love each other"....my response is always "Good, at least you are not in denial like the rest of us, now let's learn how to do that."

Redeemer

by 

Mike Hamilton

It is interesting the positions we put God in when it comes to what He "should" do for us.  Like no one else in the world we ask Him to reverse suffering, loss, pain, hurts, BEFORE they occurred, to make them as if they never occurred.  If I find myself in an ER with a doctor looking at my broken leg, I do not get mad at him for not reversing the event that broke my leg.  I am not mad at the surgeon for preventing my lung cancer, I am grateful that he is gifted in lung surgery.  I do not scream at the police officer for showing up after I dialed 911, I'm grateful that he showed up quickly and is protecting me.  When I forgive another person, that forgiveness does not reverse the pain they have caused me and vice versa.  

So why do we get angry with God for not reversing our pain?  Why do we get mad that He didn't show up "before"?  We are a peculiar group of people who seem to want to dictate to God who He should be and what His role in our life should be.  God is a redeemer, He has never claimed to be a preventer.  I would say that as long as our heart and soul is bent on determining what God was supposed to do for us, we will miss what He is doing for us.  Most of us would tell an amazing tale of a fire fighter who rushed in to carry us out of a burning building, even if we had suffered many third degree burns before he got to us.  But not God, we demand that He pay for the pain He should have prevented, instead of watching Him redeem our impossible stories of loss.  

Most clients come into my office in the place of God is "preventer" not "Redeemer".  They come to me looking for a fix, a way to better communicate to their spouse, a quick way to remedy the thing they want to affect them no more.....they want to wash away from their stories the very thing God is asking them to watch Him redeem.  A failing marriage, a past of sexual abuse, a death of a child, any trauma that our hearts are screaming "I will not let this affect me, if it does I will not survive".  

I have always been told and agree with the statement "The hardest things for our hearts to handle and accept are the things we have not chosen".  Loss and suffering spiral us into a dark place of despair instead of hope when this happens to us, be it a family death, a divorce, cancer, loss of a job, a whole host of things we would never have allowed into our lives.  We despair because we put God into a role He never promised us.  We can only Hope when we correctly see Him for what it is He does, He washes the dirty, frees the slave, restores the broken, heals the wounded.  He is the redeemer.  

When your life gets to a place where things are not going well and despair is mounting, you can almost always bet that we refuse to let Him do what He does.  Redemption is out of our purview, it is not for us to participate in beyond the role of victim.  We have to watch an unpredictable and unknowable God move in our lives and hearts without the foreknowledge that a plan exists, much less a good plan.  But if we enter into this place and have Hope we have now completed the one thing He asks of us.  "Trust Me, know that I am healing what has been broken, experience Me in loss in ways you can't understand, watch Me as I take what you thought was dirty and used and violated and hopeless and turn that into something beautiful and inspiring, something that makes you Rest and makes others Hope in me too."  Stories of the heroes of 9-11 in New York pull at us because they rushed in and helped when no one else could or would.  They are heroes not because they prevented the loss but because they made us have hope in the midst of it.  God's role in our lives and hearts is no different as redeemer.  He promises us Hope in the midst of loss, He promises to Love us in ways that makes the dark light, the intolerable tolerable.  

When Prayers Aren't Answered

by

Mike Hamilton

I was in Colorado with my family this past week.  This was supposed to be a week of refreshing, comfort, spectacular hikes and good food, a rest for my soul, my heart, my mind.  Two days into our vacation we reach the house we rented. . .at 11,000 feet.  11,000 feet.  11,000 feet, I keep typing that wondering why it didn't seem that bad when I booked this place, but it certainly seems bad now.  When we arrived at the house it was 7 or 8 pm and everyone was pretty much ready to crawl into bed.  At least that is what we thought.  

Within an hour our youngest son (2) started crying out and was restless, stuffy nose making him mad, just not comfortable, acute mountain sickness from ascending to that altitude too quickly.  Both kids ended up in our bed that night, Ben was up for hours kicking and tossing and turning.  The entire time I kept praying this ridiculous prayer, "God, please just let him go to sleep so we can have a good vacation".  And sadly, I really did mean it, that was my real prayer.  Hours later when he passed out from pure exhaustion, I was finally able to drift off for about 3 hours.  

Fast forward to the next night, its a repeat performance except this time Nate (our 5 year old) is stuffy and nauseated.  Both kids were tossing and turning, no one sleeping and I began to pray again.  "God, seriously, just let them get good rest, let them get sleep so we can enjoy this time, let them get sleep so we can enjoy the mountains and enjoy our time as a family....we need this God".  Again, sadly, I really did mean this, it was my prayer in earnest.  But here is the problem, I've known for years these kinds of prayers go unanswered.  They aren't real prayers, they are more like grumbling, ticked off, demanding prayers that are there for my comfort more than anything else.  Why would He answer that?  He has something deeper in mind for our hearts and souls than we can possible hope to understand much less ask for.  He is interested in things that transform us, transforms others, things that last and become a base for growth in us or in those around us, God is not interested in our comfortable vacations. . .He is interested in us learning to Love others and to give Grace and to suffer to find Rest.

So, three hours later, I'm still praying, desperate to go to sleep, desperate to just get those kids to sleep. . .when Nate sits up and begins to vomit in the bed.  I very quickly grab him up and he lets loose again on me, the floor, in his hand.  By the time we entered the bathroom he's vomiting on the floor and then finally in the shower.  I was barefoot, standing in it, all while telling Nate that it was going to be okay.  That he is okay, that everything was going to be okay, that I was sad he was sick and that he has done nothing wrong.  I was on my knees rubbing his hair and looking him straight in the eyes, holding his hand, cleaning him up.  I had entered into the mess in a literal way.  

And it was at that point when I felt Rest for the first time, three days into our vacation.  I began to see that I was asking for mindless numb comfort and God wanted me to understand how to Love my child in a way that is bonding, transforming, healing.  God was asking for me to enter into the mess and find a Rest that can't be explained by normal thought.  My prayers never took into account that God rarely uses comfort to bring us to big realizations.  Rarely if ever.  But while I sat in the bathroom with my son it was abundantly clear to me that I had, over the last few years, lost one of the most passionate things God had given me. . .the willingness to enter the mess with those around me.  This moment with my son was a reaffirming "go and do this, this is where you will find Rest, entering the messy places with those I've given you to love."  

It isn't the storied start to a vacation I would have asked for but I will never forget that moment with Nate.  And I hope to never forget the invitation to enter into the mess with those in my life, to love them as well as I can, to hope that my willingness to go there will invite others to do this as well.  This world offers a perfect numbing peace, it can be as sterile and clean as an operating room before use.  I have said many times God is a dirty God, so contrary to that sterile operating room.  He uses blood, mud, dirt, death, scars, sickness and tragedy to move us closer to Him and closer to others.  

Real life is full of dirty things, messiness that most of us would like to avoid for the sake of a comfortable moment, a comfortable life, a nice vacation.  I am thankful to have been in that bathroom Tuesday night with my son, sitting in that mess with him.  I hope to continue to move towards others in my weeks and years ahead to invite them to this same Rest.  Our hearts are full of painful places that most of us want to avoid for the same sake of comfort or a moving away from the pain.  It is these same places that will hold Rest for us if we dare enter in as we forsake comfort and embrace the reality of life in a fallen world.  

He came for the destroyed

Luke 19:10 is one of those examples of how our English language and translation did a disservice to a particular scripture meaning. Its not inaccurate, its just not as rich as it would have been if translated in a direct way. Luke 19:10 says "For the son of man came to seek the lost and save the what was lost". However, I'm not sure we can say that God was trying to find us, I'm not sure he didn't know our location, I'm not sure this word "lost" was the best one to use. Maybe if you look at it from a view that we were lost, meaning couldn't find our way home, that makes sense. But as enemies of God, I'm not sure if we were lost or just going our own way.

But when you look at the Greek, the word lost means "Utterly Destroyed or Decimated beyond recovery". Wow. That verse I've heard a million times just got rich, real and deep. If you think of God's as someone who designed us then you must then conclude that the fall twisted that design, or rather, destroyed it. We start out our pre-salvation moments as an utterly destroyed being, incapable of doing good without Him. If you sit with that for a while it makes the whole process of sanctification and salvation seem so different. Think of it this way, a car that has been utterly destroyed doesn't look like it was designed to look right? It doesn't operate as designed either right? A house that has been decimated can't be lived in right? It has become inoperable, useless and without purpose. Before Christ came into your heart, you were all of these things...but simultaneously He came to know you, Love you and save you, He created you....my point is, even while destroyed He saw value in you and worth in you as a daughter and son of the most High and did what was necessary to take you from utterly destroyed to a prince and princess in the High Courts...

The direction this has taken me is that without Him I am just "doing my best" which in my fallen, destroyed state is still sadly short of good. But we have a King who came to find our destroyed selves, to breathe life into our bodies and make us capable of doing what we were intended to do from day one, to glorify Him and to have fellowship with Him in Rest. And He did it, He salvaged this decimated creation because He saw something of value and worth.....

Now Entering the Kingdom of Self

I am sitting in my living room after a week of seclusion. I took time away from twitter, friends, clients, running, my family, people in general. I have had nothing left to give. I usually make contact with clients who text or email me non-emergency questions during the week just to let them know that I care for them, that they are on my radar screen, but even this was difficult. It seemed that lots of success lately has made it very difficult for me.....which is a strange thought. I have been training for a marathon in December, my practice has grown and things have been going well...so why am I so drained?

We rule our own hearts. Simple thought but complex as to how it plays out in our lives. Few of us allow unfettered access into the deeper places within us, but that is what God has designed us for. Deep connection. But this is far too disturbing. God would ask that we not protect our hearts from the things that happen. Now, let me clarify, He would ask that we not protect our hearts from what happens, this is different than allowing anything into our lives. The distinction is that we control what affects us by denying the reality of how events affect us. I'm suggesting that if someone hurts you in someway, most of us will "stuff it", deny it, or act like it never hurt us. But this isn't living in Truth, hurtful things hurt and God would want this to be true when it happens to us. And God is certainly asking us to allow Him to transform and work in our hearts all the time. We reject this because we still want to rule our own hearts apart from the King.

But, why am I so drained while things are going well? I'm in control of my heart. I didn't cause the growth in my practice, I can't. My field is based so heavily in referrals that much of a counselor's growth is up to God. He brings me clients not me. Bad events or good events all point to the one thing that all of us are afraid to admit, we can't make it happen. When my practice grows and it has nothing to do with me it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. When we lose our baby and there was nothing we could do, it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. I would much rather control my own heart without waiting on my King to show up in the good or the bad. If I rule I get to make rules, what comes in, what goes out. God never designed our hearts this way. We all live in some sort of spiritual dissociation where we decide what has happened to us and what is true, what is to be forgotten and what is painful or not. But if we do this in the hard times how do you stop doing that in the good times, a filter is a filter not easily taken off.

Let me clarify one more time. In my heart, if I'm king, I would choose to grow my practice in a way that I knew I would always be successful. God isn't interested in this. God being King makes Him interested in me showing up and caring for clients. His prosperity isn't about money, its about what happens inside of me that changes me into what He wants me to be. If I'm king I show up with clients that are easy with easy presenting problems. If I'm king I choose people needing advice about what cat to buy or how to make a good queso-dip. Since He is King I am given wounded people who need to understand what it means to be Loved, to see that others are willing to pursue their hearts, that they have value and that someone is willing to bleed for them. Its like the realization that people have when they finally understand that their marriage isn't about their happiness but more about learning how to Love their spouse without regard to themselves. It turns from blessing to a place where even in the good times we MUST LOOK TOWARDS HIM or we will hopelessly fail at it.

We are either okay with God moving in our lives either way, good or bad, or we are not. We can't have it one way and then another, we love it when He moves and hate it when He moves in hard ways, the position of our hearts simply doesn't allow this. When He moves He moves, when He acts who can reverse it? We are ultimately at His mercy. Success calls us to look towards Him if we are honest, if we look at it Biblically. Look at the story of Job, success isn't a right, it is something He gives. So if you find yourself where I am, drained and tired after really great things happening, just remember that this might be a sign pointing to something in your heart. "Now Entering the Kingdom of Self" and under this might be something in your heart that asks "Do I have what it takes, and if not will He take it away".

Ministering to others while WE are in suffering?

Jesus did so much more on the cross than die. I mean the most important thing He did for us was on the cross for sure, dying, but to not look further is to miss something important. I am not saying, more important, just something important. Look at Jesus and the rich young ruler, there is more to that story than a man who didn't follow. The story of Zacchaeus has much more to hold than where Jesus ate. The story of the adulteress woman holds more than Jesus being equitable to sinners. The story of His birth holds more than just a baby being born. In all of these stories is a store house of commentary by a God who wanted us to know Him and His heart. The cross is no different. This story is the linchpin that holds everything together for us to be sure, but in it are many invitations to our hearts. The obvious is that we can receive salvation because of this amazing and loving sacrifice. But to look closer, there are other invitations that lay at the foot of the cross.

In His most dark hour Jesus was caught in the grip of the very thing He asked the father to remove, suffering. From the garden where Jesus' request was not filled to the cross where He was covered in it, suffering, like never before, entered Jesus' story. The One who was sinless became sin, He who was our ultimate blessing became a curse, hanging from a tree. However something else was happening as He hung there for us, something that had nothing to do with His beautiful act of salvation. He began to Love and care for others in the midst of being broken spiritually and physically. As He was becoming sin He was living out perfect Love. As He was receiving all of God's fury He was living out perfect Mercy. As He was unable to be comforted He lived out giving perfect comfort. All of this in the midst of suffering.

"When Jesus saw His mother standing there, He said "Mother, here is your son" (speaking of the disciple John) and to the disciple He said "Here is your mother." In His suffering Jesus was taking care of those around Him, speaking Life into what He was witnessing as He died. He was engaged so fully with those at the foot of His cross that He was moved to invite them to be comforted and to be taken care of upon His leaving. The thief who hung next to Him was comforted while dying when Jesus said that He would be in Heaven with Him. The soldiers who were stealing His clothes were prayed for by Him that they would be forgiven. All of this happening simultaneously in His greatest day of suffering. He was always moving towards people as He lived out Love, Truth, Mercy, Grace, all despite what was happening around Him. So, what am I trying to point out here?

Suffering has a purpose for us and others. Suffering is much like Truth, it never comes back void. In the hands of the Master, suffering avails much in our hearts and lives, as well as in others' hearts and lives. But the problem is none of us are willing to sit in suffering for any extended period of time. We wiggle and wriggle our way out of suffering as quickly as we can as if it were an acid bath eating away at our skin. Oddly, I guess it is, eating away at our old flesh to make us new, but we are far too busy getting out than sitting in it. In our suffering we find Him. There is no question that He is always present in the very place that we wildly run from. Always. And in suffering and loss we have the opportunity to be stripped bare and find a place where He is all that matters and all that seems to make sense. This is where Christ lived all the time, all that matters is Him. To move into the lives of others effectively to live out Love, True Love, it takes us to a path none of us want. Suffering, loss and brokenness are the very road He calls us to when He wants us to invite others to the Deep, so they can call others to the Deep. But get this, we most effectively call others to the Deep when we are living in the middle of suffering.

Exactly! We are far too engrossed in our own lives and heart protection to give of ourselves from the deeper places, until we find brokenness. To the degree that you have experienced brokenness and have suffering in your story is the degree that you have compassion for others. Compassion without brokenness is sympathy at best. Compassion as a result of broken places in our hearts is an offering beyond us of Him. Broken people who are in pain often shock us because of their passion for Him during the loss. I see it each week or month on twitter, someone praising the King in the middle of pain, glorifying Him as they hurt...all the while our hearts are stirred to move towards Life with Him because there is something in our hearts that can't deny what they are saying. To speak that He is all I've got because it is text book, means little to me. But to hear a mother in agony over the loss of her child speak those words, that is where we see Him. When we move towards suffering we must be engaged in our story. This means we must be engaged with those in our story. And if we do these two things we can not help but speak Truth and Life to others while our world is shattering. We have no choice, if we submit to suffering, we submit to His plan in it. His plan will ALWAYS be to glorify and praise Him in ways that make others want to know more about it. This is what Jesus did on the cross and this is what we are called to each time we face suffering.