Let’s Get Real.

Transcript:

Hi there. It’s been a long time (since I’ve done a video). Please bear with me. I might explain in videos to follow where I’ve been at what I’ve been up to etc. But this isn’t the video that I’ll be talking about out stuff. Also just as a forewarning you’re going to be hearing a lot of background noise. The reason being is that I do not want to turn on any Fownes I have my windows open and I live on a very busy street even on a Sunday afternoon. There’s traffic going by all the time. And I’m also going to give a little bit of a heads up I’m glad to be talking about something that Christians do not want to talk about and it is a subject that the enemy has lied to the Body of Christ about that if we open up the discussion about this then we are calling down some sort of curse upon us or is going to cause other people to struggle in this area etc. etc..

I’m going to say this as well. If you wish to pour out judgement and condemnation and quote bible passages that speak of hellfire and damnation to what am I about to talk about, I will remove your comments from this video and if you persist, I will block you on all of my social media sites because people who are suffering in this area and the loved ones of those who are suffering in this area do not need to have any more condemnation and guilt thrown upon them. They are already drowning in self-condemnation and guilt and shame and frustration. So what am I talking about guys?

I’m talking about mental illness, anxiety, chronic depression, and the ultimate act of self-hatred – suicide. In the last three months, there have been several celebrities who have committed suicide. We all have probably read about them. However, just within my circle of friends on the Internet and in my local area, I know at least three lives have been lost to suicide. All three of them were Christians. All three of them loved the Lord. All three of them. They all served other people. And all three of them probably knew their Bibles very very well.

One of them, in fact, was the leader of a ministry that reached out to those who needed emotional and mental healing. He had fought a battle with chronic depression for most of his life and he found freedom about a decade or more ago. And he shared his testimony gratefully and with great joy and confidence that the same God who moved his life that gave him freedom would do the same in other people’s lives and he sought the fruit of his testimony. However, a few months ago his old nemesis crept in slowly and eventually consumed him to the place where he could find no way out but to kill himself. The enemy took him out.

The other was a young teen whose family and loved ones had observed some pretty negative changes in her life that indicated that there was a severe problem there and they tried to get her help. Eventually, she refused to accept professional help and she finally got to the place that she killed herself. Both of them were isolated. Both of them were easy pickings of the enemy.

I believe the Lord is saying that there are two tools that the enemy is using to wreak havoc in the body of Christ and to bring death and destruction and longtime sorrow and pain to those who have lost loved ones to suicide. And those two words those two tools are ISOLATION and SILENCE.

Isolation. Let’s talk about that for a minute. I’m going to be bouncing in between two points of view. One, the person who is isolated. And number two, the body of Christ and what we have done to isolate them. Where if you approach difficult subjects such as chronic depression and anxiety and other mental health issues, that if you dare speak those words or share that you’re going through this kind of stuff, then you are somehow going to cause that problem to become worse. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. And it’s a way that the enemy can isolate us from other people.

If there is shame and guilt in our lives, if we feel we are failing as Christians, if we dare bring up those subjects somehow we’re going to bring up the boogeyman. There was a movie, back in the 80s, called Beetlejuice.  It was a comedy-horror, I guess. But the premise of the movie was that if they mentioned the name Beetlejuice three times, bad things were going to happen.

Well, this is kind of the same thing that some Christians have developed, a superstition that if they mention the words: suicide, depression, anxiety, that somehow they’re going to conjure up the spirit of these things. That is a lie straight from hell that is being used by the enemy to build isolation and to put a wedge between those who desperately need the help of their brothers and sisters in Christ and the rest of the body of Christ.

The Lord also gave me a picture of a lion pack who are about to attack. They look for the young. They look for those who have wandered off from the rest of the pack. They look for the injured. Those are the ones that they go after.

They go after the easy pickings and they will begin to chase them at an angle. The animal that’s being attacked goes in to an instinctual way of trying to protect themselves so they start to run, not being aware that those lions are going along a trajectory that will lead them further and further away from the safety of their pack or the safety of their herd.

And this is what’s happening in the body of Christ. This is what is happening in the lives of many Christians. The young lions of the lion pack, let’s put some names to them, shall we? Perhaps it’s frustration or resentment or bitterness or loneliness or rejection or fear or financial burdens or a deep feeling of being a failure or been a fraud or not living up to their own expectations of what they think Christian’s life should be like. Each one of these lions starts to take that animal further and further away from the herd and that’s what’s happening to the body of Christ. And what is happening is, that shame and that guilt is stopping that individual from reaching out to the rest of the body of Christ for help.

And now let’s go on the other part of this.

There are many Christians and churches who show less compassion than an animal herd when it comes to protecting those who are the walking wounded within their surrounding area.

If you’ve ever watched a video of a herd of elephants protecting one of their young from predators you’ll understand what I’m talking about. They get in right between them and whatever is trying to attack their young are injured or the elderly.

But we have, as the body of Christ, when people reach out to us, we are quick to bring condemnation and judgment on them. We’re quick to try to find pat answers, put band-aids on their wounds, telling them to read this passage and memorize this scripture, sing this worship song and declare this declaration. And by the time somebody usually reaches out to another Christian, they’re usually in a pretty desperate place because they’ve seen the body of Christ turn against those who are struggling and they basically have no energy to do anything that these people who are quick with their pat answers would tell them to do. What they really need is somebody to sit quiet with Holy Ghost duct tape on their lips and amplifiers in their ears so they can hear and see where this person is coming from.

These people need a listening ear. They need life spoken into them, affirmations, but they don’t need strident declarations. They need gentleness, they need reassurance, and they slowly need you to help them to develop their resistance. Then once they’re stronger, you can start to deal with some of those areas that got them into that place in the first place. But you don’t start bringing counselling into their lives when they’re on deaths doorstep.

I feel the Lord is saying, “Stop making superstitious remarks and stop believing the lies of the enemy that are isolating those within the body of Christ who need the help the most.”.

Number two. If this is related to you in any way,  if you are waking up in the morning and feeling depressed, feeling that you can hardly put one foot in front of the other, or perhaps you’re beginning to feel like you are a failure. Perhaps you’re beginning to feel that everybody in the body of Christ is doing so much better than you are, that somehow you’re not doing things right. Perhaps you’re feeling that you’re not a good mom because you yelled at your kids. Perhaps you’re feeling that you’re not a good provider because your job doesn’t pay as much or you just are fighting in between paychecks. Or perhaps you’ve made some dumb financial decisions that have got you into a cycle that you don’t think you can get yourself out of, whatever. But if you feel that you’re starting to slip into those places, if those negative feelings are now becoming more frequent, seek out help now.

If you are fearful of going to the body of Christ because you’ve seen the body of Christ devour other believers who are struggling in these areas, get some secular help then. I’m going to put some phone numbers at the end of this and in the comment area. Probably most of them are going to end up being secular helplines, but you can call those places and you can have a nonjudgmental ear listen to where you’re at.

Don’t allow that slippery slide of intensifying negative emotions and self hatred cause you to fall down a slide where you figure you have absolutely no other alternative because the pain is too much.

Get the help now because you’re not going to have the strength – if you allow things to slide – to get help then. Now’s the time to get the help, okay? Reach out to local people. Face to face is best. If You are isolated because you’re disabled or whatever, then trust a strong sane mature person in Christ and let them know of your struggles over the Internet in whatever social media you might be in.

And now for the body of Christ – the rest of us – those of us who are perhaps not in that place. Stop judging others. Stop looking for quick fixes. Allow people to be in that place so that they’re able to share what they’re really out with genuine emotions. Let them express where they’re at.

Have you not read the Psalms where people were able to express their heart their pain their anxiety even their suicidal thoughts without the judgment of God striking them dead on the spot?

Let’s open up the discussion. Let’s open up the dialogue. Let’s stop isolating and shaming those who need the most help. And let’s stop isolating ourselves out of a fear of rejection or out of a sense of pride that we don’t want other Christians to know we are struggling. I love you guys. I’ll be doing another video soon.

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All Bible verses attributed to the ESV version unless otherwise indicated.

Until Next Week

©2018 Katherine Walden

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