Learning to Run

It seems to me that most anger is not really what it seems.  At least in our churches and families.  A wise man called the smoke alarm of the soul.  Anger sometimes is open. Sometimes it bubbles under the skin – but it is not really anger.

It’s hurt.

It’s a reaction to pain and injustice.

And the intensity of the reaction to hurt only increases with time.

REAL communication and REAL brokenness seem the simplest way to defuse anger, but who in our world is real?  Our culture is built on illusion.  Homes we can’t afford, jobs we don’t like, friends that aren’t, an intimacy that’s distant, etc.  Our western culture is like those cakes at the supermarket deli that all taste the same regardless of the appearance. Coloured sugar on top of fluff.

Our churches are the same.  Not because we want to be hypocrites, but because we believe that the illusion is real.  We are afraid to be real.  When was the last time you heard a real prayer request?  One that cut to the heart of a souls need?  A message on temptation that actually helped?  A pastor who spoke with tears of his own struggles with sin?  We are occasionally open about the existence of sin in our lives, but when are we in leadership broken over it?

Think with me.

We teach our children to govern their temper, mind their words, and moderate their responses.  All good things right?  But when do we let them expose their soul without rebuke?  Do we not as parents and church leaders often prioritize obedience above a true heart?  Sure we do.

That’s why we reward silent obedience and rebuke the outbursts that reveal heart problems.  The child who gets angry over your inconsistencies gets rebuked.  The member who erupts in a business meeting gets reprimanded.  The wife who responds incorrectly to your lack of love gets told to submit.

And they all learn that silently bearing their hurts is the only way to get along.

Because we are not real.

We teach that silent obedience is all that God wants by our refusal to allow dissent or real questions of the heart.  We demand a right attitude with every question or complaint, forgetting that even God does not demand that.  Read the Psalms or read Moses’ interactions with God.  Look at the prophets responses to the commands of God.  Their attitudes were not always right.  Not even Job’s attitude was always right.  Yet God answered them.

Family and church communication tend to be top-down and one way only.  Years may go by between a parent or a pastor checking up to see how you are really doing.   I know.  It happened to us in ministry.  Sometimes a five-minute phone call, because I missed a prayer letter, was the ONLY communication I might get in a year or more from the pastors who supported me.  And most of them never wrote, called, or visited. Seriously? Twelve years as your missionary and you only care about the official report card?  The unspoken message was very clear.

If you need help something is wrong with you.

 I have done it to others. We expect them to say when they need help, but we have proven to them in a thousand little ways that needing help is not allowed.  We condemn their failings and do not have time for their concerns.

Baptists tend to shoot our wounded. We eat our crippled young.

We are shocked when a teen or parishioner erupts over something, not realizing that they finally found the courage to speak something they had felt for a long time.  Then we react in our own anger, outraged that someone who knew better should do or say such a thing.  They apologize for being real with us (although they don’t use those words)  and then subside into quiet pain and resentment.

And we never get their hearts. 

Children grow to adulthood and then suddenly leave – for a church that accepts real people.  Because they would rather deal with poor doctrine than false love.

Members struggle for years to reach a standard that is held as the ideal – and then walk away in an instant because their honest cry for help was ignored.

We have good people in our churches – but they are looking for broken leaders who understand their real needs.  Another dry message with good alliteration won’t help.  We have amazing children in our families – but they need broken parents willing to be honest about their struggles and failures.  To be otherwise is to be disingenuous – misleading.  We are unintentionally teaching them that to be crushed inside by anger and guilt while polite and successful outside is the normal Christian life.

We are teaching them to hide from us – and to hide from God.  And in doing so we are false teachers.  Not that we are teachers of falsehood – we are just not what we appear. Shattered husks of men and women masquerading as healthy and recreating our lies among our followers and children.

I can count on one hand the number of pastors who I have seen be real in almost thirty-five years of church attendance. Most of them nobody knows, and they look like failures to others.  Maybe you have seen more.  I remember very, very few candid conversations in my life about anything in my heart.  If I looked OK, I was OK.

We are bleeding to death from wounds we that can’t even acknowledge – because we are not REAL.

Don’t be shocked when they learn the lesson.  There is a hurt and angry generation ready to erupt in our midst.  And they are probably not the ones you think they are.

They have learned to be stealthy.

CPH

Colossians 3:21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.