Wounded by God's People
Read Wounded by God's People Online
Authors: Anne Graham Lotz
FOREWORD
BY
BETH MOORE
by God's People
DISCOVERING HOW GOD'S LOVE
HEALS OUR HEARTS
GRAHAM
LOTZ
Dedicated
to
the wounded
Drawn from a Well
Foreword by Beth Moore
Jesus Understands
He Was Wounded Too
Healing Is a Journey
You Are Invited to Begin
1. Loved by God on the Periphery
God Is Not an Elitist
2. Life Is Hard
Everyone Is Wounded
3. The Cycle of Pain
The Wounded Become Wounders
4. The Believer in Exile
Running from the Wounders
5. God Cares
You Can't Outrun God
6. Spiritual Blind Spots
You Are Missing the Obvious
7. Wounding Hurts
Doing the Right Thing Can Be Painful to the Wounder
8. Rejected by Them
But Not by Him
9. Wandering in the Wilderness
God Is Still There
10. God Stands By
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He Hears Your Cry for Help
11. The Silence Is Broken
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God Is a Prayer-Hearing, Prayer-Answering, Miracle-Working God
12. A Stubborn Spirit
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Exile from Him Is Self-Imposed
13. The Turning Point
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That Was Then, This Is Now
14. I Can See!
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Your Valley May Be the Place of Vision
15. Don't Look Back
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You Can't Move Forward by Looking in the Rearview Mirror
16. It's Time to Move On
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You Can Be Reconciled
Conclusion: The End of the Healing Journey
It's Time to Come Home
Drawn from a Well
I
n an era when most communicators spare no opinion and share every impulsive thought, Anne Graham Lotz measures her speech and thinks before she writes. So by the time I picked up a book entitled
Wounded by God's People
with her name on it, I was already sitting up straighter, ears perked, ready to hear what she had to say. I knew two things before I started: Anne was utterly convinced of the leading of God to write it, and her own hurt had gone deep enough to sustain the holy passion to finish it. Authors don't always choose their books. Their path, and more often their pain, do the picking.
Anne uses the biblical story of Hagar to show how a young Egyptian slave was wounded by one of God's people â in fact, by one whom God called His friend, Abraham. The ink that it took to write the following chapters was drawn from a well much like the one God opened Hagars eyes to see in the book of Genesis. Anne will take you there with her just as she took me. You may also discover as I did that you've left some matters untended and that it's time for God to address them, rinse them with water from that well, and repair them. Anne draws on her own journey not to exploit, but to explore, not to villainize, but to empathize. And she invites you along on the road to a healing heart.
Wounds caused by our own people aren't the same as the wounds of an enemy. We can't chalk them up to random acts of unkindness. They're personal. They are inflicted by people who know us, by people we believed have loved us or at least thought kindly of us. When it is not just
our
people but
God's
people, the wound can gape wide open into a maelstrom of confusion.
Alienation.
Isolation.
Shame.
In the words of James, “These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters” (James 3:10b, NET). But unfortunately they are. And they are probably to be expected in this unfinished world among unfinished people like you and me.
Praise God, we are not without remedy. Nor are we without fellowship. The Bible records a great cloud of witnesses who have been injured within their own community and put outside the camp in one way or another. As New Testament believers, we will find that enduring this brand of pain is a profoundly impactful way we fellowship in the suffering of Christ. For Him to have been tried and tempted and torn in all ways such as we have â yet without sin â His betrayer, Judas, had to come from His own close circle. Betrayal betrays a certain camaraderie. A relationship had existed that was then found dispensable.
With the character we are blessed to expect from Anne, she speaks in these pages not only about being wounded, but also about how easily we can wound. I've been that person. You may have been too. Thankfully, wounders can also find healing and wholeness. We're all within God's reach. We're all addressed in His Word, included in His
wise counsel, and thoroughly immersed in His unfathomable love. He is a well that will never run dry.
I am so thankful for Anne Graham Lotz. She is a grace gift to the Body of Christ. A rarity I believe, in our culture. God alone knows what He has called her to endure for purposes well beyond her own sake and sanctification. I am convinced that much of what she shares with such transparency and humility in these pages was appointed to her path because God knew she wouldn't keep her healing to herself. That's the nature of the gospel. When you find good news at a bad time, you have to tell it.
Crack open these pages and you'll find a God who has already found you right there in that wilderness. Oh, may He speak so tenderly to you.
Beth Moore
Living Proof Ministries
Jesus Understands
He Was Wounded Too
A
s I look back on my life, it saddens me to acknowledge that some of my most painful wounds were inflicted by religious people â Gods people. Those who have been the most hurtful, those who have been the most unkind, those who have betrayed, slandered, and undermined me have been those who have also called themselves by God's name. They have been considered Christians by themselves and by others. Yet they have been men and women whose words and behavior are inconsistent with what they say they believe and contradict what God says. Even now, I shake my head in near disbelief as I recall some of the painful experiences I will share with you in this book.
A complicating factor for those of us who have been wounded by the behavior of Christians such as these is that we often suffer in silence. Which makes me wonder ⦠are you one of us? Are you like the dear woman who suffered in silence and expressed her wounding in a letter to me:
I can't tell you how many times I have cried deep tears that shook my whole body because of painful things that happened to me
in my church⦠. I was so hurt I stopped attending church for a good while⦠. I have recently returned to a new church, but I have often wondered what I did wrong or how I could have handled the past situation better. I think the rumor at my old church is that I left the church because I was depressed or something ⦠primarily because I kept quiet rather than attempting to defend my position. I didn't want anything I said to enter the gossip mill and hurt those who had hurt me.
I have decided to break the silence. As I reflect on the wounds that have been inflicted intentionally and unintentionally on me and on others, I feel it's time to say something. It's time to put this on the table and call out the “sin that's in the camp.”
1
As painful and devastating as wounds inflicted by God's people can be, they have made me more determined to live out what I believe authentically. I am deeply motivated to know God. I want to know Him as He truly is, not through the distorted reflection of those who called themselves by His name. And I want to make Him known to others as accurately, winsomely, clearly, and compellingly as I can.
While I don't know God as well as I want to, or as well as I should, I do know Him well enough to know that Jesus understands, because He was wounded too. It was part of God's divine plan of redemption for Jesus to be wounded and rejected by those He came to save: “He came to his own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”
2
The very people who knew the messianic prophecies better than anyone else, the very ones who should have been first in line to recognize and worship Him, the religious, educated, knowledgeable leaders of God's people, were the very ones who rejected Jesus. The very ones who called themselves the children of God stubbornly hardened their hearts against His Son. Yes, the Son of God understands what
it feels like to be wounded by cruel rejection. The religious people of His day aimed their verbal missiles at Him, then took decisive action against Him â¦
“Some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, âThis fellow is blaspheming!' ”
3
“The Pharisees said, âIt is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.' ”
4
“The Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.”
5
“Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.”
6
“Then the chief priests and the elders of the people ⦠plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him.”
7
“Those who had arrested Jesus ⦠spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him.”
8
“All the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor⦠. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.”
9
The words coming at Him from very powerful, very religious men must have felt like repeated punches to the gut. Can you feel His pain? Peter did. He was an eyewitness to the assaults on Jesus. But Peter also learned from them. Here is how he described what He saw in Jesus: “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”
10
If ever someone had the right to protest,
This isn't right, this isn't fair, I don't deserve this
, it was Jesus.
If ever someone had the right to walk out and walk away, it was Jesus.
If ever someone had an excuse to complain, feel sorry for Himself, find fault with God, it was Jesus.
If ever someone had the right to retaliate and â literallyâ condemn those who mistreated Him, it was Jesus.
Instead, Jesus entrusted Himself to God. He knew His beloved Father well enough to know that these very religious people, although they considered themselves God's representatives on earth, were nothing of the sort. They were wicked, sinful pretenders who would one day stand before God and give an account for what they had done.
It never ceases to amaze me that the most vicious lies, the most violent attacks, the ultimate rejection of Jesus, came not from the Romans or the Greeks or the pagans or the secularists, but from Israelites who were considered by themselves and others the children of God. God's people.
So I refuse to let religious phonies destroy my heart for the One who loves me and draws close to me when I am wounded. I refuse to be robbed of life's greatest treasure â a personal, permanent, passionate relationship with God through faith in Jesus.
Dear wounded believer-in-exile, what is your story? What chapter is being written today? Is your spirit lying in the dust of your wilderness wandering? Can you hear His voice calling to you? Don't reject the God of those who rejected you. Rejecting God doesn't hurt them; it only hurts you. You are the one who has been devastated. And you are the one God is calling.
Run to God and cling to Him. God understands every verbal barb, every covert injustice, every emotional shard, every leering look, every jeering smirk. But He also keeps the books, and one day He will make everything right.
In the meantime, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
11
Jesus understands!
Because He was wounded too.