The Betrayal Barrier

Song: “If We Are the Body” by Casting Crowns. That song asks a very serious question about why we as the Body of Christ are not bringing healing to those who are hurting. I want to share with you this morning something that I believe answers that question. I want to share with you the heartbeat of Healing Hearts Ministry. It comes from an article I read on the Saturday night before the accident. I believe God used the truth in this article to prepare me for what would come in the days ahead. He has also used it to help many others who are feeling like God has abandoned them.

I came home from church that Saturday night to discover a magazine in the mail from Gary Smalley, called “Men of Honor.” Now, I had not subscribed to this magazine, but since I was familiar with Gary Smalley’s ministry I decided to look at it. In it was an article titled “Is Anybody Else There?” While that is an intriguing title in itself, what really got my attention was the fact that it was an excerpt from a book written by Dr James Dobson called “When God Doesn’t Make Sense.” I had heard of this book, but had never read it, although I had read many of Dr Dobson’s books. So I began to read the article:

It told a story of a man who was driving his truck on a narrow mountain road, who went around a curve and lost control. As the car went over a cliff he jumped out just in time to see the car crash and burn in the valley below. Although the man was terrified, he managed to grab a bush near the top. As he dangled there precariously hanging over the edge, after a few minutes of trying to pull himself up, he cried out in desperation, “Is anybody there?” In a few seconds, the voice of the Lord echoes across the mountain, “Yes, I am here, what do you want?” the man pleaded, “Please save me! I can’t hold on much longer!” After a few seconds, he hears the Lord say, “All right I will save you. But first you must turn loose of the limb and trust Me to catch you.” The man looked over his shoulder at the burning truck in the valley below, then called out, “Is anybody else there?”

Now that may be a humorous story, but it illustrates the point that God wants us to trust Him with our very lives. The article went on to talk about how that after years of consistent answers to prayers, the Lord may choose not to grant a request that we think is vitally important. The questions began to rise up as we become anxious and reveal what is truly in our hearts: Where is God when we need Him? Does He know what is happening? Is He concerned? Why have the heavens grown dark and silent? What have I done to deserve this kind of treatment, this abandonment by God? Haven’t I served Him faithfully for years? What sin have I committed? What must I do to regain His favor? We feel betrayed or abandoned by God.

Dr Dobson said that he had seen few other circumstances in life that equal the agony of a shattered faith. It is a crisis brewed in hell. Then he said that Dr. R.T. Kendall, the senior minister of Westminster Chapel in London said it leads directly to what he calls “the betrayal barrier.” In his opinion, 100% of all believers will go through a time when they feel like God has abandoned them or it seems like God has let them down. He went on to say at the end of the article that Dr Kendall believes that more than 90% of us fail to break though the betrayal barrier after feeling abandoned by God! That is, we feel hurt by God. Dr Dobson said that he agreed with that statistic.

I sat in awe as I read this article, because I was going through a time when I felt like God had abandoned me. I immediately shared the article with my wife, and I told her that I chose not to be one of the more than 90% that are hurt. Then the next day I shared it with my Sunday School class and my pastor. 3 times in less than 24 hours I shared what I had read, thus God burned this truth and my conviction in my heart. 1 week later it was tested when the accident happened, my wife died, my son went into coma and died 10 weeks later, and my other son had major foot surgery. My heart desperately wanted to cry out, “Where is God?” but I knew He was with me through it all.

Dr Dobson’s advice at the end of the article was “that each of us acknowledge before the crisis occurs, if possible, that our trust in Him must be independent of our understanding….Sooner or later our intellect will pose questions we cannot possibly answer.” I would also add that not only our understanding, but our feelings can cause this. Sooner or later we will face a time when our feelings will cause us to pose questions we cannot possibly answer. We must know that God will not leave us or abandon us. This is a solid truth that we can stand on during the hard times. It is the basis for our faith and trust in Him. Heb 13:5b “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (NKJV) “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” (NASB)

Let’s look at Ex 5:1-9, 20-21 Moses goes to Pharaoh asking him to let His people go, but Pharaoh says no because he says they are lazy and makes it harder—they must make bricks without straw. The leaders of Israel come to Moses and complain. So what does Moses do? He goes to God complaining! In Ex 5:22-23 Moses complains to God--you said you would deliver us and you have not done it. Now, put yourself in Moses’ place—how would you feel? You would feel like God stuck you out on a limb and you were dangling there barely hanging on, expecting to fall any moment. God did not come through--He abandoned you at the worst time! Now in Moses’ case we know the rest of the story. God did not abandon him, but that is how Moses felt—just like he had been abandoned. Now he has a choice, trust God or not trust Him.

In Ex 6:1-5 God responds—I will do what I said I would do! It says in verse 3, “to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I appeared to them as God Almighty, but by my name LORD (Yahweh) I did not make myself known to them.” What was God saying? Moses, I will reveal myself to you in a way no one has ever known me before. God wanted Moses to see there was more to Him than Moses knew about God. Moses did not know everything about God or the situation, so he had to trust God. (When we think we know everything about God or our situation, we don’t need God--we don’t need to trust Him.) So what did Moses do when God told him this? Look at Ex 6:9 Moses spoke “thus” to the sons of Israel. What is “thus?” It is what God said. Did He allow His not understanding God or the situation to stop him from trusting God? No! Heb 11 counts him in the “hall of fame of faith.” Did he doubt God would do what He said He would do? Maybe, but he trusted God anyway. That is real faith!

Let’s talk about how to destroy “the betrayal barrier.” We believe there are two agents of healing: God and His word and His people. God says “Trust me! My Word is true, you can believe it even in the dark times of your life.” But, when we feel like God has abandoned us, “the betrayal barrier” can stop us from believing those words (e.g. Heb 13:5 “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”; James 1:2-3 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance”). Because of the hurt, anger, guilt, bitterness, rejection or other feelings we will resist God and His Word. We will begin to question Him: “Where are you God? I thought you loved me? Why are you allowing this to happen to me? Why did my loved one die? Why did I get divorced from my husband? Why didn’t I get the promotion I deserved? Why did I get sick and you didn’t heal me? Why did you allow to happen?” We will have a broken heart--a bruised heart, a crushed heart. Our grief, our pain, our feelings of abandonment will get in the way of our trusting God. And satan delights in this, because it causes us to become isolated from the Body of Christ. We become one of the more than 90% who are hurt because we feel like God has abandoned us. Do you realize this means that only 9 out of 100 Christians are whole!

There were many times when I went through the pain of grief that all I could do was cry. I would crawl up into Father’s lap and cry for hours. Yet, with the tenderness and love and of a Father, I would feel God wrap His arms around me and hold me tight. I would look up into His eyes, and see nothing but love and concern. He would say, “It’s OK my son.” Not once did He ever chastise me for not having enough faith or for being weak. You see, He wanted to show me a new side of Him that I did not know, although I had been a Christian for over 25 years. I learned that He is my Dad, “Abba, ” the one who would never hurt me. One thing I learned is that no matter what, God will never leave us or forsake us, no matter how much it feels like He has done so.

We must have the Word of God deeply planted in our hearts, so that when the storms of life come blowing upon us (and they will blow—Amen!). Heb 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” But sometimes, especially when we are going through a very hard time, the Word of God does not seem to be enough. Why? Because the broken-hearted are in pain! That pain is so intense it can seem to overshadow the truths we know in our heart. That is why God gave us each other! That is why we need the Body of Christ—the second agent of healing. When one is weak, the other can be strong. Tough times can either make us or break us. Satan wants to use them to break us. God wants to use them to make us—more like Jesus!

You see, satan wants to isolate us, so we do not have the strength to believe God and His Word because of the circumstances and feelings. That is when we get hurt, because we feel like God has abandoned us. As we come alongside a hurting brother or sister, we can strengthen them and can encourage them to trust God in spite of how it may feel or seem. We can encourage them in the truth that God has not abandoned them. We can stand with them against the storms of life and they will know that they are not alone in this battle. Together we can have the strength to destroy “the betrayal barrier” in a person’s life. As we work together in community, we can see healing come to the broken-hearted ones as God’s Word begins to work in their life. We can reverse the betrayal barrier so that less than 90% are hurt!

You may say--I had someone help me once through a tough time, but I kept going back to the same old feelings of hurt. That is because there is a process to healing. Another way to look at “the betrayal barrier” is to see the process at work. When we are “stuck” because of “the betrayal barrier” it is because our Feelings and Emotions are the dominant force (i.e. our Soul). We are hurt and all we feel is the pain of our broken heart. Others may come to us with Hope from God’s Word, but we can’t break through “the betrayal barrier” because of the pain. We shut off the Holy Spirit from being able to do His work in us. We may try to reach God out of “duty” or “habit” (e.g. read the Bible, pray, go to church), but we are not walking in a genuine living relationship with God. We have a weak faith and cannot believe God cares for us--after all we feel like He abandoned us. We isolate ourselves from the Body of Christ because all they want to do is talk about God’s goodness, healing, love, etc. We have no life for ourselves and none to give out to others who are hurting. satan is happy with this, and will continue to make us dwell on our pain and hurt. He will tell us the Body of Christ doesn’t love you (they’re all a bunch of hypocrites) and God does not love you (He abandoned you). If we are not healed from this hurt, then how can we do the work that God has for His body to do? How can we reach a hurting world when we, the Body of Christ, are hurting ourselves?

But thank God, His Word will not return void. It is a powerful weapon and can be used to fight the enemy. As we allow the process to continue in our life, doing the grief work, attending a support group, learning to trust God in spite of the circumstances. It begins to change us. We reestablish communication with the Father who loves us. Our feelings and emotions begin to yield to the faith of our spirit. We use the Word of God as a weapon against the enemy and we break down “the betrayal barrier.” We allow the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts by activating His Word in us. We begin to fellowship with the Body of Christ and we start to see hope once again.

We hurt, we heal, then we are able to help others. This is our motto and it is God’s plan for us. When God comforts us in our trials, He does it so we can then comfort others in theirs. He wants to reveal to us, through the trials we go through, more about Himself than we already know, just like He did for Moses and I. When we truly get the revelation of His unfailing love for us, then there is absolutely nothing that can stop the Body of Christ from being the healing agent that God designed it to be! We will be His arms reaching, His hands healing, His feet going, His Body showing them there is a way to real abundant life through Jesus Christ!