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Hurt for the Hurtful

God my God,

When I look at those who have hurt me or have hurt someone close to me, teach me to see where that person has been hurt. Speak to my heart that I may see the hurtful person in light of a hurting person who now has no idea that they are in need of the forgiveness and compassion I would demand in my own hurt.

Where has that person been hurt? What has hurt them so badly that they would do these things; that they would say things about me or someone close to me? What has hurt them so badly that they would live like this? Break my heart for the hurting people in my life, even if those people have hurt me or someone close to me.

Please teach me this compassion and forgiveness, that I might speak with Jesus the prayer, ‘Abba, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’

- St. PC of the Hurtful

Glorious Loneliness

Pastoral leadership is a learning position I have come to learn, but one lesson I am slowly learning is the need of withdrawal and daily solitude. Solitude as a place of heart as opposed to a set physical space!

It is not an escape.
It is not a break for rejuvenation.

In fact solitude should always be met with struggle and tension. Otherwise it is only a vacation, which also comes as a need from time to time. But solitude is needed on a much more frequent basis.

In solitude my hear is truly alone with the Father. In that loneliness I am able to shed all the demands of myself to be a certain person. I am nothing in solitude, and in that nothingness God speaks to that recess. He speaks authentic identity and intimacy.

That may not always be a peaceful smooth process. In fact it may even be abrasive when my false self I’ve worked so hard to create has to subside to the true authentic self only God can speak into my heart.

When I do not commit myself to real solitude, I lead out of either a false self or out of an increasingly soulless place.

Further, without a commitment to solitude I can begin to believe that my soul identity is ‘pastor’, and that if I am not a pastor, I am nothing. And even further than that, once my identity comes within something like that, critique creates an anger or resentment because I’ve wrapped too much of my SELF into something so fickle. So when my pastoral role is critiqued, it comes as an attack on my identity.

All of this because I have not committed myself to solitude with all of those ‘roles’ left aside so as to listen only to God as my Abba speaks my real identity into my soul, and it is only as painful as the length of time since the last moment of solitude.

4 Years on Highway 1

Davenport, California, population about 350, staying at the Davenport Roadhouse Restaurant and Inn.  It is a great little tiny town on the Highway 1.  It’s our 4 year wedding anniversary.  I sit out on the deck on a handmade rocker while Tonya takes a shower, and what a great moment this is to be so reflective while using up the last few pages of this journal, which has actually taken me a couple months short of a year to finish!

I am not sure it has ever taken me this long to fill a journal, but how great it is to look back through one book containing so much of life as I’ve seen it throughout the course of several months!

I was looking back through it before we went walking around the beach earlier, and I am amazed by all the things I have walked through over the last several months.  I have seen my life be really turned upside down and I have seen it come to great blessings in a completion only God could provide.  There were so many moments I wondered what the hell God was trying to do in my life, and why he seemed to keep great things from happening in my life; things I completely intended to glorify him greatly with.

Then I look at where I would have actually been if he had simply given me what I wanted at the time and simply placed me where I was sure I was supposed to be.  I look at things as they are now and see God’s amazing protection in place.  I would be so destroyed right now if I were where I thought I was supposed to be.  I would be burdened and heavy-hearted if I were doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing at that time.

But now, I cannot deny my Abba’s love and protection in my life.  I was SO SURE of what I was supposed to do where I was supposed to be, and I was confident that God would be glorified and honored by the ministry I would have been able to do in his name, but my Abba was there to protect.

I think of a child who wants more and more candy.  It’s so good! How could something be so good and be withheld with such assurance?  But the Father knows that candy will rot your stomach and bring you pain.  But my Father knows I would have only known more pain if I were where I was sure I was supposed to be.

And now, I find myself doing what I love.  It is my furthest long-term goal up to this point.  I am still happily married to the girl I’ve always wanted, and I still give my God all the credit, honor, and glory for it all.  My Father is very fond of me, and nonsensical protection and provision has proven that with more sense than I could write a hundred books about.

As I look down the long dark highway 1, I realize how incredibly long that road actually is in either direction from where I am at this tiny Davenport point upon it.  For miles behind me that brought us here, and for miles ahead of me that I am not intending to take at this point.  All along it, though, there is phenomenal beauty and magnificent mountains to enjoy.

4 years of marriage behind us and numerous ones ahead, but there will be beauty along the way.  More importantly, there will be an Abba Father all along the way who always knows what is best even if I cannot understand or recognized it.  All along the way there will be my Abba father who will lovingly allow me to make choices I am sure will hurt me and others in my lifetime, but I am confident that same Abba Father will protect and provide if I choose to obey and trust, even when that trust cuts to the bone of my own personal hopes, dreams, and ideals.

My Father God is very fond of me, and…