Healing Our Deep Hurts

Healing our Deep Hurts

Lent Course 2014, St. Michael’s Anglican Church

Chris Luyt

1 Kings 16:29-18:16-46

Week 1: Journey to Mount Carmel

Elijah’s World

Elijah lived in a complicated world, full of selfishness, anger, abuse, politics, corruption and hatred… and he, himself was human. James says: “Elijah was a man, just like us” (Jam. 5:17).

The Bible gives us some insight into the complexity of Elijah’s world:

Ahab, the king at that time, was more evil than any of his predecessors (1 Kings 16:30).
Ahab had brought pagan worship back into Israel (‘sins of Jeroboam); and sealed the deal by marring Jezebel, a pagan princess (1 Kings 16:31).
Hiel was rebuilding Jericho, an ancient pagan stronghold city (1 Kings. 16:34)

Elijah also had deep insecurities of his own. God called Elijah to confront the evil in his time. God’s call took Elijah on a journey of deep personal introspection, of self-discovery, and destiny.

Much of Elijah’s journey would have been subconscious.

Elijah’s Call

Like most of God’s prophets, Elijah was called by God to confront evil among His people. What was prophesied about Jesus would have been equally true for all the prophets that preceded Him:

“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.” Luke 2:34-35

Elijah’s Dream

Like all of us, Elijah would have become keenly aware of the needs around him as he grew and matured. This, coupled together with God’s call on his life, would have developed a sense of vision in him… a dream, a sense of destiny.

We all start out in life with dreams. Often these dreams seem pretty ‘black and white’ and we develop a certain naive expectation of ourselves, of God, and of the world.

The fulfilment of these expectations, though comforting, would not get us through the complexity of life as it really is, and so God begins a process of maturing us, preparing us to fulfil our calling in line with His will, which always incorporates the bigger picture (which includes confronting sin in ourselves and others).

God prepared Elijah to encounter the full reality of the world through two important probationary experiences: The Kerith Ravine, and the Widow at Zarephath.

Following these two probationary experiences, Elijah is directed, by God, back into the heat of the conflict.

Elijah’s Probation

God called Elijah to confront Ahab (1 Kings 17:1). In the very next breath, God says something extraordinary to Elijah – ‘hide’! Imagine how you would feel… maybe set up by God? How have you felt when you have followed your heart (what you know to be right) and, as a result, suffered painful consequences. Peter warned the Christians in the early church that it is possible to suffer for doing what is right (1 Pet. 3:17 cf. Matt. 5:10).

Of course, we also sometimes make bad decisions and bring unnecessary suffering into our own lives. But, even this is often as a result of naive dreams we have of ‘the good life’.

God’s concern for us is that we mature into truly godly people, not that everything is smooth sailing for us in life. As a result, God often allows ‘reality’ to happen to us; He does not always shield us from the evil in the world around us or even within ourselves.

But, often God prepares us for these painful experiences, to help us to handle them in ways that are genuine and spiritually constructive – i.e. godly.

Read the accounts of the Kerith Ravine and of the Widow at Zarephath. How can you relate to the pain and frustration that Elijah must have gone through in these experiences? What painful ‘probationary’ experiences did God allow you to go through in order to prepare you for a meaningful life in a broken and sinful world?

Elijah’s Assent

After Elijah’s probationary ‘desert’ experience (which lasted about 3 years), God called him back into the firing line to confront Ahab, Jezebel and the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:1-15).

The tension is obvious: “…Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, ‘Is that you, you troubler of Israel?’ ‘I have not made trouble for Israel,’ Elijah replied. ‘But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet on Mount Carmel.’”1 Kings 18:16-19

Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel marks the absolute high point, humanly speaking, of Elijah’s career as a prophet. He had endured much and worked hard for it; he had remained faithful to God; he had been willing to risk His life in confronting Ahab. But like so many of us, Elijah’s ‘Achilles heel’, was that His favour, his ‘success’, went to his head.

Elijah was overcome by arrogance - he mocked and killed the prophets of Baal, which God did not ask him to do.

Elijah was overcome by narcissistic negativity -despite Obadiah’s dedication to God and his care for other prophets of God (1 Kings 18:12-14 cf. 19:14a), Elijah still insists three times that: “I am the only one of God’s prophets left…” (see 1 Kings 18:22; 19:10b,14c). Later God rebukes him (1 Kings 19:18).

In God’s ‘bigger picture’ plan for Elijah, Mt. Carmel was a premature ‘success’ – which God did indulge. Before Elijah could really grow into the man God wanted him to be, he had to face himself head-on. God’s agent of transformation in Elijah’s life would be Jezebel.

APPLICATION

Life is complicated and the world in broken and riddled with sin
God doesn’t always protect us from the brokenness of the world or the complications of life… because these are what make us mature (move us beyond arrogance, fear and negativity). Although God has promised to sustain us.
Despite this, we do experience assents in life – our ‘dreams come true’, and God allows for these
We do, however, also encounter our fair share of Jezebels – painfulagents of transformation that cause us to reprioritize things in such a way as to receive a renewed life’s purpose from God.

Week 1: Group Discussion Questions

What are some examples of childhood dreams?
What are some examples of ‘adult dreams’?

“Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” S of S 2:15

What are some of the general things which complicate life for people?
What are some examples of deep frustrations that people feel in life?
How do people generally respond to these complications/frustrations?
Where do you think God is in all this?

Healing our Deep Hurts

Lent Course 2014, St. Michael’s Anglican Church

Chris Luyt

1 Kings 19:1-5

Week 2: Jezebel

Each of our deepest life-wounds has, behind it, a face. For Elijah, that face was Jezebel’s.

In week one of our course we explored the general brokenness and fallenness of the world around us. We considered how, in response to this, we developed childhood and early adult aspirations to ‘make the world a better place’.

All in all, life, at its various stages, has been difficult but bearable. How we handle the general frustrations of life lays a foundation for how we handle major, life-changing experiences. Every now and then something major builds on the horizon of our lives and floods, often quite suddenly, into our present reality. At that point we are (and have been) overwhelmed with a variety of feelings, ranging from an accumulation of our life-long inadequacies to shock, anxiety profound grief, resentment and possibly deep bitterness.

If this is the case, and our bitterness prevails unchecked, it defines the general shape our future takes as well as the essence of who we are in every present moment of our existence.

The only way we can survive, or transcend, the potential for life-long bitterness is to be drawn out of, and carried along through the floodwaters by God.

Failure (1 Kings 19:1)

For all the good stuff Elijah represented, for all his hard work, patient endurance and obedience and trust in God, the showdown on Mount Carmel had failed to change anything in Israel.

After everything, Ahab returns to Jezebel in Jezreel and, far from seeing God’s hand in the whole thing, blames Elijah for the injury sustained by his and Jezebel’s corrupt rule.

Elijah runs ahead of Ahab to Jezreel because like a divine emissary, he expects Ahab and Jezebel to recognize God’s reality and His rule.

Humanly speaking, Elijah has failed and his failure hits him square-on when Jezebel threatens his life.

Threat & Anxiety (1 Kings 19:2)

Anything that comes across our paths that threatens our earthly existence is terrifying. Even Jesus experience this kind of terror (see Mark 14:32-36). The Bible tells us that Jesus’ anxiety levels rose so high that he began to sweat blood – Hematidrosis (the most extreme manifestation of anxiety).

Elijah’s anxiety in response to Jezebel’s threat is understandable. What made Jesus different to Elijah? Jesus faced His fears – “…not my will but yours be done”; “Into your hands I commit my spirit”.

All Alone with Nowhere to Hide (1 Kings 19:3)

Beersheba was in Judah, meaning that it was technically outside of Ahab and Jezebel’s territory. But because Ahab had a strong relationship with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (1 Kings 22:4), Elijah wasn’t safe anywhere. Elijah leaves his servant in Beersheba and disappears into the heart of the desert.

Into the Wilderness of Depression (1 Kings 19:4a)

Like with Elijah, depression is unavoidable when we go through major traumatic experiences that sweep us off our feet and alter the course of our lives forever. We begin by feeling our life-long inadequacies acutely (‘I am no better than my ancestors’), these feelings build into an overwhelming sense of personal failure, followed by a growing sense of personal danger and the terror of an unbridled anxiety.

We become paranoid and clingy only to discover that eventually we face the loss of everything, including those closest to us. At this point we move into a terrible and lonely wilderness just like the wilderness Jesus was tempted in by the devil.

The Longing not to be alive Anymore (1 Kings 19:4b)

Elijah was a magnificent man of God. Elijah performed profound miracles. Elijah would become one of the most revered figures in Old Testament history. Elijah would appear with Moses on the Mountain of Transfiguration…

Elijah had had enough of life and asked God to take his life.

“Elijah was a man just like us.” James 5:17a

“Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep” (1 Kings 19:5)

Learning to know Death

Most humans hate the thought of death. We are terrified of it because we have no control over it. We cannot control its timing; we cannot control the effect it will have on our remaining loved ones; we cannot take anything (including our bodies) with us, and we cannot truly grasp what happens to us after death. Death is absolute, it ends our earthly conscious experience absolutely, and it can do this very suddenly before we have any chance to truly savour our life on earth or say goodbye to those we have learned, often at enormous personal cost, to love. The effect of grief is often so severe that it causes a temporary physiological breakdown in the bereaved.

Death was instituted by God

In Gen. 3:22-24 we read how God had to institute death to prevent us from living out an eternal hell on earth. In the early times recorded in Scripture, peoples’ lives were longer, over time the average lifespan of a human has dwindled down to somewhere between 50 and 80 years.

Every human being has within their heart a secret longing to die… when our earthly lives become unbearable (humanly speaking) – and they will sooner or later-, that longing rises up within us. It is normal to feel this way… another one of God’s top men did: (Job 7:7-16).

We long to die because our hearts know intuitively that God is our ultimate resting place (2 Cor. 5:1-10).

We are reminded of this reality, especially, every time we suffer unbearable loss and pain on earth. And it is this deep intuitive knowing that gives us the courage to persevere in living. The denial of this knowing leads us to the most excruciating hopelessness and fear, for which bitterness becomes an inadequate balm – a toxic poultice.

People who have bought into the lie that this life is all there is to our meaning and existence will fear and resist death to the bitter end, and destroy their lives and relationships in the process (e.g. Judas Iscariot). In 2 Kings 2:1-18, we read about how God eventually answered Elijah’s prayer that his life be taken. Notice the denial of those who were left behind.

The key to living a meaningful life in the midst of profound suffering is to look death squarely in the eye and surrender to our deepest intuition to be well acquainted with it. Read: John 12:23-28.

True and lasting healing begins the moment we come to terms with our own death.

Week 2: Home Reflection Questions
On a piece of paper (be as honest as you can):

List the areas in your life where you have you felt like a complete failure.
List all the people who have posed a major threat to you – the faces behind your deepest pain.
How has anxiety over these failures and people manifested in your life? How has it begun to erode your sense of fulfilment?
Write a paragraph or draw a picture about a time in your life when, having reached the end of your ability and willingness to cope, you wanted to die.
What avoidance tactics have you employed to resist focusing on your life’s deepest sadnesses? What are you addicted to?
How do you feel about your approaching death? Elisha asked Elijah for one thing before he died, he asked him for a personal, relational legacy. If you did tomorrow, would you be satisfied that you were leaving a genuine relational legacy to others?

Healing our Deep Hurts

Lent Course 2014, St. Michael’s Anglican Church

Chris Luyt

1 Kings 19:6-9

Week 3: Towards Horeb - Finding God in the Darkness

At the height of his earthly career, just when everything seemed to be falling into place, Elijah ran into the person who would bring his deepest life-long insecurities violently to the forefront of his consciousness. The effect was instantaneous and devastating. It made him feel like a failure, it invoked an overwhelming anxiety in him, it left him utterly alone with nowhere and no one to turn to… it brought him to the lowest point in his life where he fell to the ground in abject depression and exhaustion, left only with a longing to die. “Elijah was a man just like us…” Jam. 5:17a

Last week we explored the phases of human breakdown, the result of a sudden or long-building trauma within a person’s life. We looked at Job’s life, and at Jesus’ life, and discovered that these painful and terrifying experiences are part and parcel of God’s maturing process in our lives. It was a very uncomfortable study because, at the best of times, we humans don’t like confronting our sense of failure, our fear and our deepest life wounds.

However, we concluded, from John 12:23-28, that if we are to become all that God wants us to be; if we are to attain genuine wholeness in this life, we must, ‘like a kernel of wheat, fall to the ground and ‘die’’. When Jesus concludes His evaluation of His own life, he exclaims: “Father glorify your name”… Jesus accepted the fact that life in a fallen world necessarily involved dying, both literally and in a spiritual sense. The only way to find freedom from our deepest hurts is to surrender to the fact that God has a bigger plan for us that extends far beyond this world and our limited sense of purpose. When we catch a glimpse of this, it changes the way we see ourselves on earth… it opens our eyes to a bigger vision for our lives, a vision based upon love, selflessness and service towards others who are broken and lost.

But before we get there, we must learn to love ourselves. Jesus said: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matt. 22:36-40

Until we can learn to nurse our own wounds and love ourselves genuinely – not in selfish, revengeful bitterness-, we cannot love anyone else genuinely. We cannot learn to love and accept and celebrate ourselves, without learning to know and to love God. The problem is we often start out with a sinful love of ourselves which prevents us from loving God and others. To realign us, God does not protect us from the pain of life, rather He allows our pain and darkness in life to confirm for us that He alone is the source of all authentic life. This is what Elijah had to learn on Mount Carmel; this is why God did not protect him from Jezebel.