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Exchanged Glory V: God Meant it for Good
<page 176>The key to significance, usefulness, and value isn’t to gain the attention of men; it is to respond to God. …He will act for our sakes, and we will see the fruit for all eternity.
One of those with Jesus pulled his sword …Jesus said, "Put your sword back where it belongs. …Don't you realize that I am able right now to call to my Father, and twelve companies — more, if I want them — of fighting angels would be here, battle-ready?”
(Matthew 26:51-53, The Message)
If Jesus had decided against being captured and taken to death, His Father would have honored His choice, but sometimes the only way we can bring something good into the world is through suffering. We find ourselves in a situation with no easy options. On the one hand, our instincts tell us to flee to safety; on the other, love calls for a sacrifice.
If we are bound by addiction, this will often be a daily choice. Our hedge of thorns holds us tight, and escape seems impossible. The “safety” of surrender calls to us with its siren song of easy peace. When we compare that to our internal ignorance, the stress associated with moving forward, and the misunderstandings of those around us, it seems ridiculous that God would ask us to endure the path to freedom. But if we love Him, others, or ourselves – there is no other good option.
So we choose the struggle. We decide in faith to do what is humanly impossible, stumbling in our efforts and wondering if we are accomplishing anything at all. Our hedge of thorns tears at our hearts, and our hope is shaken. We consider Jesus’ example on the cross, and it is inspiring, but our troubles don’t seem anywhere near as important as His. After all, we aren’t dying for the sins of the world; we are simply trying to make the most of our seemingly insignificant lives. Our pain appears out of proportion to the little we see being accomplished.
Does God view our situation differently? That is one of the most important questions we can ask. If He places great value on our suffering, it doesn’t matter how important it may appear to us or others. He will be with us, and it will be part of a great world-changing plan.
I find it helpful to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12-50). Did any of them do anything all that impressive by human standards? Abraham’s claim to fame was that he believed God, something that millions of others have done. And Isaac? The Bible hardly records anything good or bad about him. There was more said about Jacob, but a good deal of it was about how he was a liar and a cheat; he hardly seemed like a world-changer. Let’s be honest; if we were to take away the fact that these men are mentioned in the Bible, few of us would bother to remember them. They just wouldn’t seem that important.
God saw them differently. In spite of their lack of impressive credentials, He was moved by their lives, and that has affected millions of people. Consider the following verse:
And so all Israel will be saved, … Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. (emphasis added)
Many thousands of years after the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) have left us, God still makes decisions for their sakes. When He looks at the Jewish people, He remembers His promises because of these men.
There is no greater significance than to move the heart of God. He responds to His relationship with us, and through Him a Butterfly Effect is set in motion that transforms the future.
What could we possibly do that would be greater than that? If we impress everyone on the planet but fail to impress Him, we have accomplished nothing. But if a thousand years from now He is still showing mercy for our sakes, we have shaken the foundations of heaven and earth.
That is true power. That is true significance. That puts the suffering of recovering addicts into a whole new light.
I find Jacob’s life to be especially comforting. He suffered from deep character flaws. His story reads basically like this: He was a dishonest conniver (Genesis 25:29-34, Genesis 27); God spoke to him (Genesis 28:13-15); he believed God (Genesis 28:16-22); then he spent twenty years working as an indentured servant on a farm and raising a family (Genesis 29-30). During this time, he let God deal with his character flaws. Finally, he wrestled with God and received a new name, Israel, which means “one who has struggled with God and men and has prevailed” (Genesis 32:22-32).
In terms of our normal definitions of significance and usefulness, Jacob’s life is interesting, but it seems isolated from the centers of power in the world. Jacob hardly compares with other heroes of the faith like Moses (who delivered a nation from slavery), David (who defeated enemies, served as king, and brought tremendous prosperity), and Isaiah (who prophesied the future).
Jacob never led a large group of people, saved anyone from trouble, or said much of great importance. Even his children didn’t turn out that well. With the exception of Joseph, they included liars (Genesis 37:31-32), murderers (Genesis 34:25-26), and adulterers (Genesis 38). If they hadn’t moved to Egypt, it is likely they would have been absorbed into the ungodliness of Canaan and failed to be a nation at all.
Yet to this day, after thousands of years, God still remembers Jacob and acts for His sake. Why? Because God has different standards than we do! He is deeply moved when we grow to know Him and allow Him to work on our character flaws.
The name change from Jacob (which means cheat) to Israel (which means someone who is strong with God) was significant. The wrestling match described in Genesis 32 was a picture of the spiritual wrestling match that Jacob had engaged in for the past twenty years. He had struggled for the life God was giving Him. He had fought for the promise that came from heaven. His new name was a picture of the person he had become through that difficulty, and God was so excited by the change that He brought blessings through Jacob to the entire planet. All that we enjoy spiritually today has been built, in part, on Jacob’s contribution.
The implications of Jacob’s life for addicts are tremendous. The key to significance, usefulness, and value isn’t to gain the attention of men; it is to respond to God. If we allow Him to influence us, we influence Him, and He responds to our willingness by doing far more than any of our plans for greatness could ever achieve. He doesn’t require us to be perfect or impressive in the eyes of <page 178>others. All we have to do is be His friend and work with Him. Based on that, He will act for our sakes, and we will see the fruit for all eternity.
When I consider my life, this truth gives me hope. I have wrestled with God for over thirty years to find the answers to my sexual difficulties. It seemed like such a waste. Why couldn’t I be out doing impressive works? Why was I groping for answers to questions that others didn’t even ask? I felt lonely and unimportant.
When I started writing the Exchanged Glory series of books, I hoped that this would change. In the seven years since Exchanged Glory: A Vision of Freedom was published (under a pseudonym), however, I have only sold perhaps twenty books. Five years after the publication of Exchanged Glory II: The OK Stronghold, I have yet to sell my first copy. It has been difficult to even get people to review my other manuscripts. Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents has been available for review for seven years, but only a few friends have read it and provided feedback. I have little human reason to believe that the other books in the series will fare much better.
I have tried to hire people who know about sexual addiction to help me in the writing process. One helped for a few months and then became ill and died. Another allowed me to hire him to review a few chapters, but he stopped fairly quickly for personal reasons. Later I contacted a well-known leader in the field of sexual addiction ministry, but he was too busy and turned down my offer to pay him for feedback.
By the time this third attempt failed, I was well into the writing project. I had done most of the work by myself, and it was getting too late to do much rewriting. I thought back to a dream I had in 2003 in which my team leader from work came to me and told me I had been given a new assignment. She said that I had been specifically chosen for this job because I liked to work alone. I woke from the dream and thought to myself, “It looks like God (symbolized by my team leader) is calling me to do something new …but I doubt I will like working alone.”
Shortly after the dream, I joined New Life Ministry, the online support group I mentioned in Chapter Twenty Nine, “Miracle.” I began writing the Exchanged Glory series of books, which I believe was the assignment the dream spoke of.
It looked at first as if I would have a great deal of help. For the first time in my life, I had a group of people with whom I could speak freely. When I first shared my testimony with them, I said, “In the past year I experienced so much health and freedom that I wanted to share it with people. Unfortunately my story doesn’t preach well in church. …I found that my freedom made me feel even more lonely than my struggle used to.” It looked like New Life Ministry was at last going to give me a chance to join with others in my battle against sexual problems.
That has happened to some extent, but most of the people I meet online are in the beginning stages of their recovery. They are so overwhelmed with their own problems that they don’t feel able to become involved with mine. On the other hand, those who have found victory are generally too busy helping others to be available for me.
It is ironic that my heart first developed the smoking fetish as an attempt to reconnect with the world around me, yet it has made me so unique in my experience and perspective that I remain separated from others. I have had little choice but to accept what the dream told me, that this writing project would be done largely by myself.
<page 179> Fortunately, the friendship of Jesus has been amazing, and I do enjoy the creative freedom that comes from working by myself. I also have friends at church with whom I am able to share my manuscripts and my thoughts. They don’t know much about sexual addiction, but they are a part of my life in other ways. Their encouragement has been more important than any expert advice I could have received.
It hasn’t been easy, however, to get past my loneliness. I have wondered, “Am I wasting my time and money? Will I really be able to deal with all of the internal and external difficulties associated with sharing about a subject that is so sensitive? And how many people really care about it? I am writing five books for an audience that doesn’t generally read (sex addicts), and I don’t even fit in all that well with them. How many of them were basically well-behaved kids who got trapped by a smoking fetish?”
After considering it all, there is little I can do but follow where I believe the Holy Spirit is leading. For now, He seems to want me to wrestle with God and write. When the writing is done, I will trust Him to move me to my next assignment. If the books die in obscurity, I can be content that He has read them. His approval is enough, and He will act for my sake. I am not always sure how to handle that on an emotional level, but I trust Him to lead me into true Contentment.
In this is a lesson that I believe is especially important for those who struggle with sexual addiction. Many of us long for recognition to fill the empty feeling from the long hard fight, but we probably won’t receive much of it from others. We deal with problems that many wish would simply go away, and we are hardly the sort of people they will trust. There have been large numbers of hopeful sexual strugglers before us who have claimed freedom and then fallen back.
Some who find out about our struggles may consider us to be suspect for the rest of our lives. Others will be concerned that if we share openly about our struggles, we will cause fear, confusion, and temptation among God’s people. Others worry that we might bring unnecessary criticism and scrutiny to our lives or to those around us.
My wife has unsuccessfully tried to read my books several times. Every time she begins, she gives up out of a belief that she won’t be able to handle what she will learn. She finally told me that if she finds out about this area of my life she might find it difficult to enjoy our marriage, and she values our relationship too much to risk ruining it like that.
This leaves me in a difficult position. If I share what I believe God has given me, she might spend the rest of her life enduring our time together. When I choose not to share, I wonder whether I am grieving the Holy Spirit. Am I being wise, or am I being disobedient? Am I loving my wife (Ephesians 5:25), or am I failing to properly “hate” her for Christ’s sake (Luke 14:26)? I am not sure. After many years of seeking God, praying, talking to her, fasting, using a pseudonym to minister anonymously, and asking others for advice, I have been unable to resolve this quandary.
The fact is that it is difficult for those with sexual problems to be transparent with the family of God, and even with their own families. Most human beings become uncomfortable when they hear someone talk about a sexual struggle – especially a long, awkward, painful one like mine, even when the person sharing is describing what God has shown them. On more than one occasion, I have privately spoken with friends about what God was showing me, and they have said, “That’s great, but you aren’t going to say that in church, are you?” (I was planning to.)
<page 180> We all have a God-given desire to bare our souls to others, especially when we feel that doing so expresses a message from God’s heart. We want to admit our weaknesses and proclaim His strength. It is difficult for a recovering sex addict to do this, and I am not sure how to change that.
Our hope can’t be based in a belief that we will rise in the eyes of others, write books, or be able to speak openly. It instead must be in the fact that God is our closest friend. He is the only One who can meet our need for companionship and recognition. If we focus on knowing Him, He will lead us into true love, significance, and usefulness.
Early in 2009, I had written the first few pages of this chapter, but I was having trouble getting the message into my emotions. I believed what I had written about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I continued to feel as if my life had been a waste. My books seemed to be one more example of me putting a tremendous amount of effort into something that amounted to very little.
Along with this, my financial investments were crashing with the world economy, so my hope that I would be able to retire early and devote myself to serving Jesus full time was dealt a setback. The thought of continuing to juggle work and ministry for many more years made the time I had spent writing these books seem suspect. I could have devoted myself to projects that were more likely to bear fruit.
I prayed a prayer that went something like this. “Father, I have devoted thousands of hours to learning Your word and thousands more to writing these books. I’ve been through so much, and I believe You have used all of it to give me something to share with people. But I don’t know how to get the message out, and because of the economy, I am not sure I will ever get a chance to really try. Has this been a waste? I could have spent my time helping people in other ways. I am glad that my own healing came through writing these books, but was this really just for me?”
I believe God answered this prayer by giving me a metaphor that helped me understand what was happening. I have mentioned previously in this series of books that I tend to adopt metaphors (or sayings) that help me during different stages of my life. My first metaphor was, “Life is a tightrope over hell.”[79] It helped me to remain humble in the face of temptations I didn’t understand. That was followed by, “Life is a street-fight,”[80] which helped me to endure frustrations. That was followed by “I’m Buffy the Vampire Slayer,[81] and you are …?”[82] – which helped me find the courage to face the frightening emotional and demonic strongholds in my life.
Though the Buffy quote amused me and was surprisingly effective, I knew it was potentially offensive. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer had several scenes I couldn’t watch because of sexual content, and many Christians would choose not to watch the show at all because of spiritual content.)
For the most part, I didn’t tell others about the quote. Only the people in my church knew. This was because I one day felt the Holy Spirit had led me to share about the stages in my life in a <page 181>church meeting, and I used the metaphors to illustrate them. After that, many friendly jokes followed about my taste in TV shows.
I was grateful for the graciousness of my church family, but I knew other Christians might not be so accepting. For several years I looked for a new saying, perhaps something from the Bible that would sound more spiritual. Nothing stuck until early in 2009, while I was struggling to accept what I had written about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I was doing some work on my computer while playing the DVDs of the first season of the TV show Heroes[83] in the background. I could identify with many of the themes in the show: the desire to feel special …the desire to have your life count for something …the desire to save the world.
One of the characters, Hiro Nakamura, had the ability to travel through time, and He used this to determine that he could reverse a major disaster if he could stop the past murder of a seemingly insignificant little cheerleader. He then travelled back in time and delivered this message to another character, Peter Petrelli, who had the ability to save the girl. Hiro summed up the rescue mission with the phrase, “Save the cheerleader; save the world.”
I took a break from working and began to pray. Fairly quickly, I sensed the Lord drop a message into my heart: “Save the cheerleader; save the world.” Instantly, I understood what He was saying. It was that He saves the world one seemingly insignificant little “cheerleader” (person) at a time. I shouldn’t judge my life by the lack of impressiveness of my ministry or the few people I reached; I should judge it by His desire to touch individuals – including me. I was the cheerleader!
I sensed the Holy Spirit impress on me that even if He never used me to speak to anyone, it was enough that I had grown to know Jesus. He had revealed Himself, led me out of destructive sins, and healed my broken heart for my sake, not to create a ministry. If the thousands of hours I had spent studying and writing never helped another person, they were far from a waste. He loved me enough to call me to devote that kind of time for my good, even if it never touched anyone else.
Then if He chose to reach out through me to others, He would do it for their sakes, not because of some need I felt for misplaced significance. His heart was primarily about saving seemingly insignificant little “cheerleaders,” not about validating my gifts or anyone else’s.
With this revelation, I found greater Contentment. God was tearing apart more of the misled inner train tracks I had created as an emotional young boy. Out of my frustration, I had built fantasies of recognition as a replacement for real relationships. If people noticed me, I felt this would fill the empty place in my heart. God was reminding me that it was His job to fill that empty place.
I saw that no amount of human recognition could ever meet my longing to feel significant. When I received attention from someone, it would only bring temporary relief; then I would need my next “fix” from another person. Even a steady stream of admirers could never give my heart what it desired.
God could, however. He enjoyed supporting me throughout the day. He was excited about my moment by moment decisions to follow Him, and He touched me with His approval. I didn’t need <page 182>to strive to be anything beyond what He called me to be, and He was OK with me taking as long as it took to grow up.
I was His child, and I didn’t need to force ministry out of the fear that I might otherwise waste my life. My ministry was primarily to Him, continually, in everyday tasks and in seemingly grander tasks. Out of that, He would touch others.
God was helping me to reclaim more of my emotions that tended to show up in “smoking fetish form.” In this case, my nagging need for recognition by people was like a weight that dragged me down toward a sense of lonely failure. When people weren’t paying attention to me, this tended to produce temptations to return to the fetish for its false feeling of being “on top of the world.” God was now joining His emotions with mine in a way that allowed them to find true fulfillment. His continual attention, which I could receive by faith, would give me the sense of belonging and significance I sought.
Ironically, I knew that this would also do more to “save the world” than any of my fretting efforts ever could. God is the King of the Butterfly Effect, and whenever we respond to Him, we are like that butterfly that sets in motion spiritual currents of His love. They reach out through us to save other seemingly insignificant little “cheerleaders,” and the kingdom of God expands.
Abraham practiced this, and God birthed nations through Him. It is also what Isaac and Jacob did, and God made the nation of Israel great for their sakes. Joseph followed the same path, and God preserved His people through him. A single person who responds to God’s love makes all the difference in the world.
As I make my way through the long and often difficult transformation that enables me to feel this truth in my heart, I use a new saying to remind me of it: “Save the cheerleader; save the world!”
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