The more „brothers and sisters” come to our Christian life, the more it becomes complicated so that many times we cease to understand our own selves and what do we actually want in that Christian life. All kinds of contradictory elements, adverse and different soulish convictions, ambitions and desires are growing instead of diminishing and we may not know what we are and how to get out of it. Our tendency at such times is to become independent in order to get out of that “mess” and difficulties and to live a peaceful, private, exclusive and separate life, where no one will affect us negatively, or direct us, oppress us according to his personal convictions or ambitions. It seems to be a soulish fight which grows in time and becomes even stronger and this merry-go-round never stops and never solves any personal problems. What may be tragic is that when someone finally decides to “jump off” such merry-go-round and does not find his personal, separated and peaceful life, usually jumps on a different merry-go-round, which might fulfill the desires of his oppressed soul more, but it might be far more dangerous spiritually. On that new merry-go-round man may become more deceived than on that former one and he may even lose his salvation! The devil always waits for such “jumpers” as they are for him inviting victims, like sheep, which leave their sheepfold and they begin to seek new pastures on their own. They never knew the Lord and thus they could not follow Him. The devil always tries to put into our soul emotions, perceptions, thoughts, imaginations and any other indications that God is, in fact, against us, that He has a controversy with us, that because of our sins and transgressions and weaknesses and shortcomings He somehow cannot love us or answer our prayers or take care of us. Using many such fallacies and stupidities the devil desires to rob us of our peace, increase the pressures upon us, which may eventually seduce us and lead us away from God and we will start seeking “more peaceful places” without stresses… wherever the wind will “blow us”.
On the other hand, if these deceptions of the devil do not work, he has at his disposal the whole mountain of other deceptions. The best is always an opposing deception. If it is difficult for you to believe that God does not love you, that He has things against you, conflicts with you, etc., then the devil will lead you to believe fairytales about God’s “infinite and unconditional love for you”, how much God really loves you as you are! That it is sufficient to whisper to your Heavenly Father about your great love and devotion for Him and everything is resolved… even without regard for the Word of God, which means, without regard how you live, what deeds you do, how you ignore or break the Word of God left and right, how you do not respect and comply with His Commandments (Jn. 14:21, etc), etc. Deceived believer DOES NOT KNOW that he is deceived, thus he walks in his Christian life as a lunatic and believes every “fool”, who flatters him and speaks to him things which the believer personally likes… though they may be deep lies and stupidities.
These above paragraphs are realities for every spiritually starting believer, especially the one, who is serious with Christ. Who has no interest just to somehow “slip into Heaven” or to have Christ only as a “fire exit” when something starts to burn in the house. We all know that every child in a certain age has to contract certain “children’s sicknesses” and when it reaches 13 years, which is also known as the “teenager’s age”, that child “enters a tunnel” and will not emerge out of it until he is 19 years of age. True? We all can remember this since no one is an exception. We should, therefore, not be surprised when we find out that something similar is taking place also in our spiritual development. Even here, we pass through our “spiritual children’s sicknesses” and then we enter a “spiritual tunnel” where we see nothing, neither ourselves nor the Lord. This is happening irrespective of our physical age! Here we have plenty of time to dream about a better life, a Heaven, an ideal Christianity, even about an ideal earthly life. We have here enough time to overcome all kinds of smaller or greater disappointments, unimaginable and illogical situations, “heart attacks”, intellectual or emotional shocks, etc. We also may wonder about such facts, that other brethren do not behave toward us as we expect or as they should and that, in fact, they have the same opinions about us that neither we are behaving toward them as we should.
I personally can testify from my 45 years of ministry to the Church that even some of my close brethren were going through that “tunnel” approximately 20-30 years or even more and it took me quite a time to begin to notice that fact and that they started to look to me as “hopeless cases”. The clearest proof of this fact came when I began to see them as “coming out from the tunnel” – and that notby my endeavor! Suddenly, they started to be “different people” and with the old ones, whom I knew so well, they began to lose any association! A Miracle! Since that time, I did not dare to consider any believer as a “hopeless case”. And I would counsel the same thing to others, who may have similar cases because the Lord is not following our logical judgments. And what the Lord has prepared for them, also for their “post-mortem” development, which is clearly beyond our imagination. The spiritual lesson is that the judgments and imaginations of our human mind about any other person are altogether unrighteous, inaccurate, unjustifiable and totally unsatisfactory as the basis for their future. And this is true also touching our husband, wife, children, siblings and a host of brethren and friends. Only the Lord can see their truthful future. Let us see that the greatest problems of any man are not being resolved by words, or by discussions, or preaching, but by tears (Mt. 8:12/ 22:13).
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To be continued next week
brother Hanola
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