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Exchanged Glory V: God Meant it for Good
Out of the Hedge of Thorns
Chapter Eleven. Childlikeness and Vulnerability
I didn’t realize that my worship and the fetish both sprang from the same childlike approach.
Potiphar’s House
After Joseph had been taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelites, Potiphar an Egyptian, one of Pharaoh's officials and the manager of his household, bought him from them. …His master recognized that GOD was with him, saw that GOD was working for good in everything he did. He became very fond of Joseph and made him his personal aide. He put him in charge of all his personal affairs, turning everything over to him.
(Genesis 39:1, 3-4, The Message)
If you had to be a slave in Egypt, Potiphar’s house was the place to be one. As one of Pharaoh’s officials and the manager of his household, Potiphar was wealthy and competent. His house was no slip-shod operation; it ran well, and those who served in it enjoyed the benefits.
This was especially true of Joseph. His God-given ability to bring prosperity caused Potiphar to make him his personal aide. Joseph had privileges and responsibilities beyond all those around him. Although I am sure he wasn’t happy about his slavery, his life could have been far worse. He did about as well as anyone in his position could hope to do.
Ironically, I imagine Joseph found his new position, in some ways …freeing. It was probably the first time he had been able to truly explore the leadership gifts that God had placed within Him. He had no doubt sensed them when he was younger, but his brothers had always been there to make sure he couldn’t fully pursue his potential. They hated him. The last thing they were going to do was to follow him or allow him to enjoy any kind of success. They undermined his efforts, frustrating his ability to become the person God had created him to be.
We can be sure that Potiphar’s slaves had a different attitude. Potiphar didn’t have to put up with anything second rate. Everyone in the house worked hard and implemented Joseph’s plans, or they paid a price.
But I doubt it was hard to obey Joseph, because “GOD was working for good in everything he did.” God-given success is a great motivator. When people are in the middle of a project that He is blessing, they tend to recognize that they are a part of something special.
I imagine Joseph found a certain sense of fulfillment in all of this. He was able to discover the “leader within” that he had never before been able to express. In the middle of his toil and hardship, I believe his days in Potiphar’s house were some of the best of his young life.
Childlike Self-Expression
When I look at Joseph in Potiphar’s house, I see an analogy to my teenage years. Though I was bound by the addictive slavery of a fetish, God was with me. He allowed me to experience His supernatural work and thrilled me with His presence. I found great delight in exploring who He was and who He had called me to be. I worshipped, learned His word, became part of a church, fasted, and shared His grace with anyone who would listen. In the middle of my mess, He showed me the same kind of mercy He had shown to Joseph (and considering my sins, perhaps a good deal more).
I know it sounds strange that my relationship with Jesus worked in spite of habitual sexual sin and demonic oppression, but I believe I can explain both the good and the bad with one simple phrase: “I was childlike (and often childish) in just about everything I did.”
When it came to my faith, this approach was a great help. I lived from my heart and tried to avoid unnecessary religious trapping. I wasn’t interested in man-made traditions or superficial facades that lacked spiritual life. I wanted the Living God to work in me and everyone around me. I believed His word, felt at home with Him, and sang and danced to celebrate our relationship. My heart trusted that I was a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), and even though I wasn’t sure what that meant, I believed it would eventually transform my life. It all seemed pretty straightforward and desirable, so I pursued Him with all I had.[25]
Most of the time, this approach worked well. It was only with the fetish that everything turned out wrong. In that one area, the childlike simplicity of expressing my heart resulted in perversion rather than righteous living, and that confused me terribly. I didn’t know how to be anyone besides the person I felt I was, and I was bewildered when that person turned out to be frighteningly fallen.
The demonic voices that harassed me, of course, played on my failures. They tried to get me to doubt whether my faith was real: “Maybe the reason you are having these problems is that you’re not really a Christian? If you were, wouldn’t you change?” They also tried to chase me away from my “live from the heart” approach: “You need to just accept the fact that the best you can do is to be ashamed of your failures, follow rules, and submit to our condemning message.”
I defied them by expressing myself with greater zeal. When they made me feel unworthy before Jesus, I marched into His presence, figuring if He didn’t want me to be there, He would have to kick me out. I wasn’t going to run from Him. I devoted my time to worshipping Him, studying His word, and hanging out with His people.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, this didn’t keep me from sinning. My times of worship were often followed by times of privately acting out. Sometimes I broke down and bought a pack of cigarettes, smoked a few, and then threw the rest away – frustrated by my inability to live what I believed.
I didn’t realize that my worship and the fetish both sprang from the same childlike approach. In both cases, I was honestly expressing what I felt. When I sensed God’s overcoming power, my heart spilled out in service to Him. When I didn’t, it spilled out in sexual sin. Either way, I refused to accept the harsh judgments of my internal Parent and the demons that were hooked into it. Instead, I focused on being a child who was loved as I was.
This was, of course, a wonderful approach in many ways, but it was similar to the approach that had led to the smoking fetish in the first place. In that case, I had stirred up my childlike sexual emotions as a defense against self-punishment. I asserted my right to live outside of the negative feelings that had led me to cut myself with razor blades. My heart pulled together the pieces of my world (permissive-love, smoking, sexual desire) and rearranged them into a mindset that allowed me to live out of Fun Emotions and Desires rather than Fear, Guilt, Anger, and Sorrow. Both the fetish and my simple Christian faith relied on my childlike joy and creativity to avoid the harsh side of my internal Parent.
Wonder and Wandering
My faith can be explained using Figure 14.
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Please notice the highlighted God’s Appointments arrow. It signifies the fact that the Holy Spirit was now working in my life, showing me His plan. I was not on my own. Instead, I was experiencing His power in a series of encounters that He had arranged for me.
This didn’t mean I instantly gained good character, but it did mean that I was headed in the right direction. He was taking me on a journey, and I found joy in learning what it was. My childlike enthusiasm led me to rearrange my life so that I could get to know Him, which is represented by the arrow from the Fun Emotions and Desires box to the Obedient Behavior and Attitudes box. God was reclaiming my internal Child for His purposes.
I couldn’t just rely on feelings, however. I also needed to pursue Jesus when doing so was difficult, which is represented by the arrow from the Self-Control box to the Obedient Behavior and Attitudes box. I tried to use my mind and my will in a way that would keep me in touch with His Appointments.
On the negative side, my childlike enthusiasm often spilled out in the opposite direction – toward the fetish (the arrow from the Fun Emotions and Desires box to the Sinful Behaviors and Attitudes box). My unresolved Fear, Guilt, Anger, and Sorrow also showed up regularly, pushing me to the same destination (the other arrows to the Sinful Behaviors and Attitudes box). I repented quickly, but I wasn’t sure how to change what I was doing. I might spend the entire day seeking and serving God only to break down and privately act out after going to bed.
Still, He was with me in both my wonder and my wandering. Though I had tough times, I often sensed that He was there. This kept me from being overwhelmed by the issues that threatened to destroy me. In spite of my confusion and setbacks, His promises held me steady and assured me that the truth would make me free (John 8:32).
Scripture Songs
One enjoyable part of my early Christian life came from the combination of my love for the Bible and my love for music. I recently found some old cassette tapes of scripture songs I had written and recorded in my late teens and early twenties. They contained twenty-two entire psalms put to music.[26] Along with this, I can remember at least another twenty chapters I had put to music, including the books of Philippians and Colossians.[27]
Imagine me as a young man, dealing with demonic attacks, struggling with out of control sexual desires, yet pouring my heart out before God with words like:
I say to God, my rock: "Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?" Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
(Psalm 42:9-11, RSV)[28]
You can’t buy better therapy than that. I was able to emotionally connect with my Creator using His own inspired words.
Along with this, the 1970s were a spiritually exciting time in general. The Charismatic Movement[29] was gaining momentum and bringing revival. I still remember my first charismatic worship service. People were singing, lifting their hands, and prophesying. I instantly felt at home and raised my hands with them. I was so excited that I went home afterward and put one of the prophecies I had heard to music. Not long after that, I was sharing in meetings and prophesying myself.
Occasionally, I also felt free to express my more painful emotions. I remember at least one occasion in which I bawled my eyes out at a church alter as I considered the issues in my life. I was an emotional young man, and my relationship with Jesus reflected this.
From Glory to Glory
One strong motivation in my early Christian life (and still today) was the desire for God to speak to me by the power of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t just want to know the Bible; I wanted to know its Author – and to experience Him as a living person who was involved in my life. I believed that this was the only way I could live for Him; I needed Him to open my eyes so I could truly know Him. A near constant prayer of my heart for myself was based on the words of Paul:
…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened;…
One particularly important encounter with the Lord occurred one night in my dorm room at college. He spoke to me from 2 Corinthians 3 and 4, confirming that my life wasn’t about controlling myself with external rules. It was about working with Him as He wrote His message on my heart.
…clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart …not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (emphasis added)
I saw that my goal in life and in ministry wasn’t to look like a good Christian; it was to experience the work of the Spirit and share Him with others. Rather than holding up an image of strength, I should let my weaknesses show. That way, people would be able to see that it wasn’t me doing the work; it was God.
Putting on a façade was what I would do if I lived by the Law. Legalism would put me in a situation where my only hope was to live up to God’s commandments, even if they were totally beyond my ability. This would leave me feeling compelled to try to convince myself and others that I was doing well even if I was dying on the inside. Like Moses, who wore a veil when he received the Law, my façade would keep everyone but God from seeing what was really happening in my heart.
Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech — unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. (emphasis added)
I concluded that being transparent was a way of declaring my belief in the New Covenant Jesus had made with me. It was a risk of faith in which I would stake my reputation on the fact that He would do what He said He would. I was justified by grace rather than works, and His Spirit was gradually leading me into liberty and transforming me. I could be honest about my faults, because I believed that doing so showed all the more clearly that He was the One Who was fixing them.
I decided to trust Him to do this in spite of the fact that I sometimes didn’t see it happening. Why should I let my embarrassment over my failures cause me to hide His work? I could openly share my journey into His glory as best I could, trying to be wise about when and where I revealed details, yet knowing that an amazing work was occurring.
Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This “unveiled” approach to life became especially important when it became clear that I wasn’t finding answers to my sexual problems. As I fell into the Brokenness I described in Chapter Eight, “The Hedge of Thorns,”[30] I shared about my problems with my church leaders and Christian friends. I admitted that I was a needy “earthen vessel” who couldn’t save myself, and this helped set the stage for God to release His power.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
As you continue in this book, you will read that I eventually backed away from this sort of transparency. The realities of how people feel when someone shares about sexual struggles caused me to pull back. Still, the foundation that had been built during my early years as a Christian remained. I had touched the spiritual reality that Jesus loved me and wanted to live through me. The difficulties I encountered while trying to translate that into practical living didn’t undo the honest heart to heart relationship with Him that sustained me.
Sin, Death, and Judgment
My experience was unusual for someone suffering from addiction. Most addicts tend to see God as an angry judge who rejects them for their weaknesses. I certainly had feelings along those lines, but I believed they were lies. Why would He bother to reach out to me if He was going to reject me over issues He had promised to fix? Didn’t it make more sense to trust His word and pursue Him until He freed me as He said He would?
I suppose that in this case, my background in permissive-love gave me an advantage over those who have grown up under legalistic religion. I never really lived under the deception of a harsh and unforgiving god. Even before I became a Christian, I believed He loved me.
On the flip side, however, it wasn’t easy for me to accept the seriousness of sin. It didn’t make sense to me that a loving God would throw large numbers of people into hell. I was too caught up with the idea that human beings should be cared for and appreciated whenever possible. The concept of eternal judgment was almost entirely outside my emotional conception of what love was.
My approach was certainly better than debilitating condemnation, but I was missing an important ingredient in His message. I probably would have continued to miss it for much longer had it not been for the smoking fetish. My inability to handle this one sin let me know that something was seriously wrong. This came forcefully upon me when I fell to smoking and privately acting out without restriction. The evidence clearly told me that though I had done everything I knew of to let Jesus live through me, I was lacking something important.
My heart was prepared to see a revelation that I had never before suspected could help. It had to do with a number of the issues that the Unprotected Heart Stronghold had frightened me away from – issues of sin, death, and judgment. I had avoided them because they made me feel vulnerable. They were too close to the fears stirred by my internal Parent and the demons that created doubts in my mind: “Maybe I am a spiritual reject. Perhaps legalism is right, and I am condemned for not structuring my life around rules. But I know I could never live like that, so if I tried I might fail miserably. If that is all there is to life, I see no hope for me.”
I had fought back against those sorts of thoughts by asserting my right to express myself. I was a human being, not a slave who needed to be forced into obedience by intimidation and threats of brutality. I wouldn’t give into spelling out rules and robotically following them. Instead, I would stir my creative juices before my Creator, expressing the “out-gushings” of my heart in delight in His presence. Doing this made me feel alive and valuable. It gave me a sense that I was contributing to the world. I wasn’t the loser my internal Parent told me I was, and this helped me to hold my sense of vulnerability at a distance.
But was I really holding it at a distance, or were my attempts to run from Fear and Guilt reinforcing my vulnerability? The simple truth was that by avoiding those sorts of emotions I was keeping them from becoming helpful parts of my life.
That was about to change. My hours of meditating on the Bible had worn away my resistance. The Holy Spirit had been preparing me to face truths about sin, death, and judgment that had appeared too horrible to really believe. I was about to come to grips with the fact that there were laws. I could call them principles if I wanted, but they were still unchanging commandments that I was responsible to obey. There was also good reason to Fear, because breaking God’s laws had consequences. And Guilt was real, because I fell short of His glory and deserved to be judged. God wanted to make these sorts of emotions a part of my life.
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