Jeremiah 12: 3
“But You, O Lord, know me;
You have seen me, and You have tested my heart toward You. “
God doesn't look away from the broken, the weak or the fallen. He saw Hager sitting by a spring in the wilderness (Genesis 16:7), and Jeremiah, knew that God saw him as well.
Understanding that God is the God who sees - made a huge impact in their lives. The need to know that God sees us is not new.
Jesus conducted his earthly ministry the same way. Jesus never looked away, neither from the leper nor the lame, the Pharisee or the prostitute . Not from you or me in any of our time of need. And those of us who call ourselves Christ followers must love the same way.
People who are hurting don't need us to avoid eye contact or pretend not to notice their pain. We don't look away when it is inconvenient or uncomfortable. Sometimes the greatest act of love towards someone can be to simply see them. Let’s look someone in the eye today and make them feel seen.
Prayer:
‘Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, so that I can see others the way You see them.’
Excerpt From:
100 Favourite Bible Prayers
How does this fit with the culture of BCF to shun anyone who leaves?
No, you will never hear that scripture come out of vic/peter/david/blah/blah/blah mouths. In 20 some years of listening to the poison this mere man and his various (some gone, some soon to be gone I'm sure) butt kissing minions spew out on a constant, retread cycle makes me ill. Can't say I've ever heard any of them bring scriptures about God's great love towards us......no, it's just the same old hell fire and brimstone about going to hell since we are not really understanding what the great voctorini is saying. Nuff said, I'll leave it there!
Just today at the shops I experienced the same old shunning exercise from a dear old friends parent who is stuck in there. I basically lived at this persons house as a young person and teen. I looked at her, she looked back at me, and I know she saw me… just looked the other way. Pretended not to see me! Would Jesus turn away from greeting people in the street? Of course not…
I’m sorry to hear of your experience Stargazer.
Shunning is so very wrong. It’s unhealthy. It’s evil.
They are taught to feel betrayed by us.
They are taught not to ask us why we left/were told to leave.
They’re threatened that they could be persuaded by us - “the liars”.
Those who are brave enough to engage with us are then told “well you’re only hearing one side of the story”.
I have never forgotten a time when I was in the CF and I didn’t acknowledge someone who’d left (who had been demonized).
I later found out just how horrendously she’d been treated.
My shunning of her has always haunted me; an awful feeling, I’ve never forgotten it.
Although I could track her down, I’ve heard that she’s not in a place mentally, to want to be reminded of her church experience.
To ask people to forgive us can be yet another demand, even another abuse which is all about us and not them.
Dealing with our own shame for how we’ve judged others when we’ve looked thru the CF lens, is important for us to do - to pray for those we hurt, and also to allow Gods radical forgiveness which is freely, already given, to wash away our shame.
I am often reading here on this forum, from ex CFers who are finding the depth and the unfailing ENORMITY of Divine Love.
(Divine Love which is not limited to those in the group.)
Thank you for this encouraging thread, Guest and Seeker.
Lillith
Oh and also, I recommend “The Chosen” series.
In the context of this thread, I found episode one to be so healing.
To be seen by Jesus…
to be known by Jesus…
to be named by Jesus
When one is pounded year after year with how special it is to hear 'Vics word' .... and how those poor souls in other church's out there are going to hell, shunning seems to become second nature.
Lillith, I understand the shame. I remember lashing out angrily at Helen Pomery when she had so much courage to call out the evil of Vic "the Vicious Hall" Hall. I wrote blog posts, posted on Friendster (the predecessor of Facebook and one of the pioneering social media sites), and generally was such an angry and intolerant individual.
Aunty Helen, if you're reading this, I do again apologise. Having experienced the hostile side of things from the CFs and Vic's worst words ever, I now know how it is. And I feel so ashamed to ever think that I was proud of being part of an exclusive church. No more. And now I pity those who are still obstinately thinking they're something extraordinary. Well I guess they are - they're under a man who is extraordinarily cruel and ruthless.
Awesome Thanomer. About a month before the 4 Corners expose, "God of broken hearts", I had heard rumblings that some crazy woman (I can't remember the exact words sir vic used, but they were not nice) was causing trouble because of her fragile mental state. While not overt, the word that came down was not to waste time watching it...and many did not. But I did, and it really opened my eyes to what my heart had been telling me. The lies vic brought about Helen were horrible...I believe a real 'man of God' would never state, let alone think, of what they put her through. As bad as that is, we don't really have a clue about what she has been through....
I'm only halfway through this, but, from what I've listened to so far, I thought it might help to alleviate some of the guilt we may feel when we think about all the shunning nonsense we participated in.
It may be a bit scientific and hard to understand but the gist I get is that when we (as humans) are excessively exposed to a narcissistic personality, we begin to absorb their personality traits and express them as our own. You can imagine how intense this effect would be in the echo chamber of a cult.
