SURVIVING A CHRISTIAN DISASTER

GET UP AND WIN YOUR RACE

21 Feb 2017

I'm writing this for all of those who may think that they are down and out and gone too far. Perhaps you feel that both God, man, friends & family have all abandoned you and you have been strung out to dry & die. Been there, done that…..For the sake of encouragement, here's a glimpse into my Dark Night of the Soul..

In the mid 70's I experienced  the most amazing Damascus Road conversion experience. You'd think that would be enough to keep you on the straight and narrow forever, right? Tragically, not in my case. In the early 90's I was a young pastor of a fast growing church with several church plants. We held prayer meetings everyday and ran numerous mission outreaches that required almost monthly overseas travel. I was also blessed to be Managing Director of a prosperous business with several demanding and at a distance outlets.  On top of that somewhat exhausting schedule we decided to self build a large home in sprawling grounds out in the country side - All of which is code for "Burnout". It was unacknowledged and un-crucified insecurity, pride, call it what you, inner demand for recognition, validation, whatever. However, to the contrary of my intended motive this ridiculous schedule but slowly but surely stripped me of normality in almost every sense of the word. The family life suffered, my devotional life suffered and as far as personal rest & recovery?

Well, for around two years I averaged just three hours per night  of fitful, cold sweat, sleeps. Usually awakening more exhausted than when I lay down. One night a week, Thursdays, I'd try not to sleep at all and just work all through the night to do catch up and meet the prayer team coming in at 5am and the day would start all over again.

Soon I had betrayed the key principle that had birthed all this "so called success" when I failed to love Jesus first and daily wait patiently for His direction in my life. This mistake was obviously not missed by our enemy "The Roaring Lion", perhaps even set up by him. Anyways, I was easy prey and even as a shock to myself I failed morally. God warned Cain that sin crouched at the door. Ha! open that door just a little crack, see whats going on out there, naively deceived into believing that your past zeal and historical power can protect you from what ever you see when you open that door just a little bit. And then you find out as the power of sin with shock and awe crashes that door off its hinges and takes you with it. The other thing that surprised me was that I hadn't failed long before I did. The shame, the emotional exhaustion, the fear of rejection all paralysed me from confessing my sin. So, guess what, a culture of repeat and serial sin followed for the next two years.

Amazingly, though I know harboured a dark secret yet the Lord still saved souls through our ministry, sent miracles and en-powered us to pull down some major strongholds in our community and round about.  I prayed daily for a merciful exposure because I didn't have the guts to expose it myself.  Yet, I still lived in fear of the day it would all come out which it surely did Oct 1995. It would be an understatement to say that it was one of the worst days of my entire life.

Within twenty fours hours phones that once rang off the hook were now silent, as was the bell of our front door. Our home, previously a hive of Christian community activity was now deserted. My ministry gone, my dreams shattered, my wife and two young children utterly devastated. Such a price for unhealed insecurities. Which wounds Christ would have healed had I been able to acknowledge them and surrender them to Him, but my ride had not allowed that. I had this small thread of hope that kept me from ending it all. At the time the exposure actually came was almost two years after I had "last" sinned. I had walked with the Lord without sin or compromise, but not without guilt & shame. Nevertheless, once exposed, although not new to God, who I believe had forgiven me, was certainly new to everyone else and their reaction was totally, painfully understandable.

I'd like to say that we all moved forward slowly in humble restoration, but that wasn't to be. It has never ceased to amaze me to read of celebrity preachers that have fell from grace, caught in the act, sometimes with the same sex, but in six weeks they are back behind their pulpit with standing ovation from their congregation? Didn't happen that way for me..

Several months later, whilst trying to find some kind of normality, I accepted an invitation to travel to New Zealand to investigate a marketing job with a Christian TV station. Whilst there I learned from my wife that journalists and photographers had gathered and parked at the end of our drive for days at a time. I was raw, devastated, in deep pain and not a safe person to offend. My world had totally collapsed and suppression of the anxiety, failure and years of suppressing guilt had began to kindle a burning frustration inside me. I had deep burning anger for myself at my own irreversible foolishness and that if it was released it would not be easily quenched. I lived off nerves day in day out, losing weight and decorum. I felt like I was in free fall without a parachute. I cannot describe the anguish of soul as I could muster no resistance to the constant swarm of accusing, condemning demons that surrounded my head & home. I returned home to prepare the house for sale and can hardly express the relief to find that the press had moved on - Or so I thought..

A couple of days later as I hammered in fence posts to divide our ground for selling, my young son came over and said "dad that man is taking pictures of you". I looked up and 50 metres away a guy had quietly driven in and was sat with a big lens camera. It was a tipping point, something inside me seemed to snap as I ran for him, sledge hammer in hand. The Lord only knew what would have happened if I had caught him because this latest invasion into my pain erupted like a fountain at the sight of him and the thought as to what he wanted those pictures for. He roared off down our country drive. The dam of my rage had burst and was far from quenched by his leaving our grounds. I jumped in the car, took the short cut, found him and followed him nose to tail and break neck speed for miles & miles, until eventually, brokenness, conviction and blinded by tears I slowed to a crawl and let him accelerate away. He was not personally try to destroy me, he was just doing his job.. 

Next day I'm on the front page of the papers, combat jacket, black commando hat and sledge hammer in hand with a face of grim wrath. It didn't paint the picture of a man dressed for the cold whilst he raised a fence. It all looked much more sinister than that and hardly the image any community shepherd would be proud of. Two days later another journalist and photographer fired up by my recent front page expose smelling a good story knocked on my door. I opened it to get a camera shoved right in my face. He did that to the wrong man on the wrong day. I leapt from the door smashing the photographer and camera to the ground and rolling him in the mud in the process. Both of them fled to their car and screeched up our drive and away. I guess they didn't want to risk me running to get my hammer.

And so began the most awful five year wilderness of rejection and isolation by "Christianity" that I could ever imagine. As the Psalmist wrote "Lover and friend hast thou put far from me".

For the first year I went into shock, couldn't go anywhere, couldn't take a call or make a call phone, couldn't even think about getting a job and Lord knows we really needed the money. The mortgage continued as usual as did the utility bills and simple cost of living. It wasn't long before we were way over our heads in bank loans and credit card debt. I wanted to work, but still didn't realise that I had had a physical & nervous breakdown. Sitting, staring, saying nothing for hours, weeping never seemed far away. I was in a dark and descending pit of self pity, depression and demonic oppression. A dark night of the soul indeed.

I was crying out to God from my heart like never before. Taking long late walks down completely dark country roads brought a small degree of comfort. Initially and strangely the presence of God would visit me and quiet me. When it all became too much it was as if He gave me a dose of the medicine of his presence and that would prevent me from contemplating ending it all. The Holy Spirit would highlight verses as I read the bible that affirmed He was still with me. "Though all men forsake you I will not forsake you". During the first months of this moral and social catastrophe of my own making, I pleaded with the Lord for the deep fellowship to be restored that I had enjoyed with Him years before.

One day around this time, I was cutting grass on our little tractor, it was a five acre garden and it would take me two hours a day for three days to complete. The belt kept springing off the cutting deck and it was a complex process to fit it back on. It happened so many times this particular day and I did not have the patience or emotional reserves to handle this. I sat on the ground, back against the wheel, knuckles all scraped where Id tried to replace the belt. And I cried like a baby, big sobs from the bottom of my soul wracked my body. I didn't care who heard, I didn't think I could keep it down even if I wanted to. It was then that I seemed to hear clearly what had been a distant echo for the previous few days. An echo I quickly quashed as impossible, but now, sat here on the grass, utterly broken, the echo was a voice and I heard it clearly and it just made me wail all the more. The Lord told me, I didn't imagine it, I heard it clearly in my heart to begin a 40 day water only fast as a beginning to restoring my walk with Him. Oh no! That seemed impossible as meals had become a comfort of my otherwise mind numbingly boring day - Fast for 6 weeks? Though not unfamiliar with fasting, the longest I'd fasted before with water only was 21 days, it was an awful and gruelling daily struggle. To nearly double that time seemed impossible to me.

It took till the third day of grass cutting and hearing this constantly from the Holy Spirit before I finally switched off the tractor engine slipped to the ground and leaning back against the wheel again, on the side away from the house so my wife could not see me weeping I surrendered to the fasting, fearing that this really may be my last chance.

The next day I felt zeal and excitement that I could soon be walking closely with the Lord again. I was hoping that He would vindicate and restore me to my Christian family but not sure how seeing I was the one who messed everything up.  I wanted this 24/7 agony of failure and rejection lifted out of my heart.

Much more to say and if you would like to hear more - Comment!

THE RACE

 Quit! Give Up! You're beaten

They shout at me and plead

There's just too much against you now,

This time you can't succeed

And as I started to hang my head,

In front of failures face

My downward fall is broken by

The memory of a race

And hope refills my weakened will

As I recall the scene

For just the thought of that short race

Rejuvenates my being

A children's race,

Young boys, young men,

Now I remember well

Excitement? Sure! But also fear

It wasn't hard to tell

They all lined up so full of hope

Each thought to win the race

Or - to tie for first or if not that,

At least take second place.

As fathers watched from the side

Each cheering for his son

And each boy hoped to show

His dad That he would be the one.

The whistle blew and off they went

Young hearts and hopes of fire,

To win, to be the hero there

Was each boy's young desire.

And one boy in particular

Whose dad was in the crowd

Was winning near the lead

And thought,

My dad will be so proud!"

But as he ran down the field

Across a shallow dip

The little boy who thought to win

Lost his step and slipped....

Trying hard to catch himself

His hand flew out to brace

And mid the laughter of the crowd

He fell in deep disgrace.

So down he fell and with him hope

Surely He could not win now

Embarrassed, sad, he only wished

To disappear somehow.

But as he fell his dad stood up

And showed his anxious face

Which to his boy dearly said,

"'Get up and win the race!"

He quickly rose, no damage done,

Behind a bit that's all

And ran with all his might and mind

To make up for the fall.

 So anxious to restore himself

- To catch up and to win -

His mind went faster than his legs

He slipped and fell again.

He wished then he had quit before

With only one disgrace

I'm hopeless as a runner now

I shouldn't try to race!

But in the laughing crowd

He searched

And found his fathers face

The steady look that said again

"Get up, and win the race!"

So up he jumped to try again

- Ten yards behind the last -

"If 1 am going to gain those yards"

"I've got to move real fast."

Exceeding everything he had

He gained eight or ten

But trying so hard to catch the lead

He slipped and fell again...

Defeat he lay there silently

- A tear dropped from his eye -

There is no sense running anymore

Three strikes I'm out, why try?"

The will to rise had disappeared.

All hope had fled away

So far behind so error prone,

Failure all the way.

I've lost so what's the use, he thought,

I'll live in my disgrace."

But, then he thought about his dad

Who, soon he'll have to face.

"Get up! An echo sounded low

Get up! And take your place

You were not meant for failure here

Get up and win the race."

With borrowed will "Get up" it, said

You haven't lost at all

For winning is no more than this:

To rise each time you fall.

So up he rose to try once more

And with a new commit,

He resolved to win or lose

At least he wouldn't quit.

So far behind the others now

- The most he'd ever been -

Still he gave it all he had

And ran as though to win.

Three times he'd fallen, stumbling

Three limes he rose again

Too far behind to hope to win.

He still ran to the end.

They cheered the winning runner

As he crossed the line first place,

Head high and proud and happy

No falling, no disgrace.

But when the fallen youngster

Crossed the line last place

The crowd gave him a greater cheer

For finishing the race.

And even though he came in last

With head bowed low, un-proud

You would have thought

He'd won the race

To listen to the crowd.

And to his dad he sadly said,

"I didn't do so well"

"To me you won son" his father said

"You rose each time you fell".

And now when things

Seem dark and hard

And difficult to face

The memory of that little boy

Helps me in my race.

For all of life is like that race

With ups and downs and all

And all you have to do to win

Is rise each time you fall.

Quit! Give up! You're beaten!"

They still shout in my face

But another voice within me whispers,

GET-UP AND WIN THE RACE!!'

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Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat dawn at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

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Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my Gad will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, my enemy: when I fall I will arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a fight to me. Micah 7:7-8 (NKI)

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Success

Is not an unblemished crown

Nor is it an unbroken chain

It's not even a destination

It's more of a journey.

The reward belongs

Not to him who started well

 But to him who finished well…

I WILL GIVE A CROWN OF LIFE