As I'm writing this in the midst of the Corona virus crisis, many have been encouraged to lament over what is going on in our world, at the possible judgment of God on our nation/world or the brokenness of our world. Whatever the reason is for this "plague", I pray we see it as a DIVINE RESET to assess our priorities, to change unhealthy aspects of our chaotic culture.
I too lament over the broken state of the world, but my lamenting started over a decade ago, and in 2010, I was compelled to focus a prayer and fasting season reflecting on the brokenness in our world. (That will be a different post down the road and I will link here when it's ready)
Then in 2013, my laments deepened and grew into grieving as my eyes were increasingly opened to the sick state of the institutional church and I became more and more aware of some systemic spiritual abuse that was occurring far too often. Grief became part of my journey for 4 years (Oct 2013- Oct 2017) as I lamented many wrongs - abuses of power, distortions of doctrine and twisted theology, that I had been significantly unaware of before that.
For years, I was mostly alone (humanly speaking) in my lamenting and grief over the state of the Church. My grief was not acknowledged by church leadership, and the few times when I would mention it to an elder/pastor, the message to me was it was inappropriate and invalid. This response was confirmed to me as there was never any follow up response for how I was doing regarding my journey. Instead the message of "Let it go... forgive and move on" was a common MO of leadership (and if you brought it up again, you were told you were "bitter"), while the same old patterns of abuse of power continued unchecked with very little accountability of those in power. I grieved deeply! (my journey of grief is an entire post in itself which I hope to write up later and link here but will include a brief summary for now)
I grieved over the fact that spiritual leadership was far too often doing the exact opposite of scripture, and actually doing what scripture pretty clearly says not to do... we were silencing, covering up, and hiding ungodly behavior in the darkness. To me, this seemed a pretty clear violation of John 3:19-21 and in alignment with the enemy's ways, because God's way is in the light! (That's part of the reason for the title of this blog)
God specifically says to expose the evil that is hidden in darkness (Eph 5).
In 2014, I started realizing the various distortions of doctrine and theology that I had become aware of since 2006 was getting to be quite a long list, and I kept finding out more (that is part of God answering a prayer to show me if I'm being deceived - which I hope to write on in another post and link it here). So I started to document my laments and it became a "List of laments"... I quickly listed around 50 to start with... I keep adding more over the years and am now somewhere around 100!
So the purpose of this post is just a short backstory to how my list of laments came to be. I will post on them one by one over time, as I am reminded of them and sense a leading to share them here. I have already shared "God is Worthy", a post on my #1 lament on how we have not emphasized loving, serving and worshipping God for Who He is.
https://lightshininginadarkplace.blogspot.com/2020/04/god-is-worthy.html
Another lament I hope to write on and post here soon is how we the Church have minimized the Priesthood of ALL believers. The verse from Joel 2 in the picture at the top, reminded me of how we are ALL priests and are ALL called to weep and pray over the broken state of our world. Hallelujah! God might be releasing the Priesthood of Believers (POB) in this season! (I will add the link here, when that post is published!)
PS... a bit of backstory here for this specific post (and blog)... Our family has experienced some interesting events (warfare?) that seem to be connected with me posting on this blog: I started writing on my blog again last week after taking an unintended 4 year leave after wildfires impacted our family and the crazy continued for several more years...
https://lightshininginadarkplace.blogspot.com/2020/04/time-lapse-where-have-i-been-for-last-4.html,
So some interesting things happened last week right after I started posting again April 14-15. I did 3 posts, took a break and when I started on this specific post last week on the afternoon of April 15, my computer crashed in a major way as I tried to download the image at the top of this post. Our son spent 20 plus hours re-configuring everything on the computer as the Windows operating system refused to be reloaded onto the C drive.
Thankfully, all of the data is ok! We had recently purchased some SSD drives when one my external backup drives failed about a month or so ago and we could not access anything on that drive at all! So thankfully we are up and running again, hopefully using a more stable drive. It reminds me of the verse in Hebrews 12 where God talks about what can be shaken, will be shaken, and what cannot be shaken will remain. So is this God allowing the enemy to shake? Or?
God is using even our battles for good! The computer crashed prompted me to organize our family pictures from the last 8 years or so, and that prompted me to spend some time on Shutterfly finishing up some projects. I hope to keep working on the pictures along with writing posts for this blog.
This is how I fight my battles! That warfare is part of what is going on was confirmed as I was writing this post today while listening to Michael W Smith's WORSHIP AROUND THE WORLD that he just posted on Facebook in the last 24 hours (Fight my Battles starts @ about 14:20)... I love when technology is used for God's glory! Thank You Lord!
https://www.facebook.com/117698398265386/videos/230492524701538/
another interesting confirmation for me for different reasons was Amy Grant singing "El Shaddai"... Love how God sovereignly orchestrates our obedience, recognizing that it is a simultaneous and symbiotic equation of His sovereignty and our free will, that He somehow planned since the beginning of time for His glory and our good, however that works!
HE IS WORTHY!
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