Recovering from Spiritual Abuse: My Journey to Healing, Part 2

Is God Both Sovereign and Good?

Continuing where I left off in Part 1 of this series, I got to the place where I could trust Jesus after enduring spiritual abuse at a church in Denver. However, I noticed a deeper distrust emerging from the depths of my soul, and it went something like this, “I can trust Jesus, but I can’t trust God.” Now, there’s much for me to unpack with this statement of unbelief, but before I do, I’d like to provide some context to explain how this distrust even got down deep into my soul (Afterall, this is my story about my journey to healing from spiritual abuse; this was very personal unbelief coming from very personal events from the past).

My Historical Context

While my pastoral internship in Denver was widely known and many had a vague knowledge that things up in Denver were difficult for me, only a few who know me know this: Denver was not my first experience of cult-like domineering pastoral leadership.

I became a Christian in 1996 when I was 16 years old. I joined a small church, which quickly grew into a mega-church (not affiliated with Sovereign Grace Churches). At the age of 20, I had intimate knowledge of the private life of the church pastors as an eyewitness with a front-row seat to shameful hypocrisy. I experienced the lies and slander from such so-called pastors; I experienced the systemic abuse of pastoral authority; I experienced what happens when pastors treat the church as their personal organizational-empire, rather than the body of Jesus Christ; I witnessed pastors covering up the truth to protect their image, instead of exposing the truth for the glory of God; I experienced the severing of close friendships since the line was drawn by the pastors and, I found that I was alone on one side of that line without anyone ever hearing my perspective; I experienced literal ostracization from my entire church family, while I was banned from talking with actual family matters about the pastor’s scandalous ways; I was rejected by the church-elite and forbidden to talk with anyone and even forbidden to leave the church (I’m not making this up, unfortunately). To protect the image of the Sr. pastor and his empire, I became expendable. I was defenseless, vulnerable, and alone. So I planned my specific way to commit suicide. My tear-covered letter was written to my parents with one last signature of my name.

Then God saved my life. How He did it was amazing, and I would be happy to share that story with anyone, anywhere, anytime, and anyplace for it always makes my soul rejoice in the love and goodness of God! But for now, in this article, I want to say that spiritual abuse from pastors is something I had long ago experienced before my four-year pastoral internship. When you add my experience with domineering pastors from my early twenties, with the functional cult I experienced within Sovereign Grace Churches, not to mention the hundreds of people who were “dropping like flies” from their pastoral spiritual beatings, combined with the wear and tear of decades in church… add it all together and upon ending my pastoral internship something broke inside of me: My belief that God is both sovereign and good.

A little explanation about such unbelief might be helpful. Regarding my personal views[1] regarding the economy of the Trinity[2], each person of the Godhead (Father, Son, and Spirit) is seen throughout the Bible as taking on different functions. As I understood, God the Father tends to function as the one choosing, foreknowing, ordaining, etc.

Back to My Struggle

Okay, back up to speed on my post-pastoral internship struggle. Even though I made strides in once again trusting Jesus, I would think to myself things like (notice if you have ever thought similar questions):

· “If God really loves His church, then why does He allow such wicked pastors to wreak havoc among His people?”

· “If God is trustworthy, then why are disqualified men allowed to become & stay pastors, regardless of what the Bible says about them?”

· “If God is both sovereign and good, then why do thousands in the church suffer unjustly the cruel spiritual abuse from pastors?”

The concept that God is both sovereign and good was on my mind continuously: While brushing my teeth, driving to work, eating dinner, lying in bed… How can God be both sovereign and good while allowing such horrific things to happen in His church? It was maddening. I broke down these two characteristics (sovereign and good) into the following four descriptions of God (listed in order from best to worst, as I see it):

1. God is both sovereign and good. [3]

2. God is good but not sovereign.[4]

3. God is not sovereign or good. [5]

4. God is sovereign but not good.[6]

As my struggle continued, option four is what I began to believe about God functionally; an evil tyrant who cannot be stopped. I was angry with God and hurt and confused.

Here was my ultimate challenge: “Can I trust that God is sovereign and good?” And to get to the bottom of my doubt, “Does God even love me?”

A Good Purpose in My Doctrinal Confusion

So, there I was. Believing I can trust Jesus, but not God. Here’s the twist: What kept me from throwing away my Christian faith was precisely this doctrinal inconsistency. You see, I was aware that it was Biblically inconsistent to ascribe trustworthiness to Jesus while distrusting God the Father. I knew that didn’t add up, even though the inconsistency was very real inside me. Upon hearing about my confused view of the Trinity, my therapist suggested, “Maybe the inconsistency is a blessing, anchoring you and keeping you from throwing away your faith?” She was right. Something inside of me had to work out this inconsistent view of the Trinity before making a life-altering decision.

Back to The Basics

How would I work through this Trinitarian confusion? Well, for one reason or another, I still trusted Jesus, so I started there. I went back to the basics. I began reading from the gospel of John, slowly, meditatively, verse-by-verse. I didn’t have to read far before my inconsistency was challenged, as I read chapter 1, verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” There it was! The Word was God! SPOILER ALERT: A few verses later in verse 14, John makes it clear that this “Word” from verse 1 will become Jesus, the incarnate Word. This was the first step to bringing back some level of harmony in my view of the Trinity… Jesus is God (I told you I went back to the basics)! Furthermore, I read in verse 14 what some people will see when they look at Jesus, “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” There is both grace and truth to behold in Jesus, who reflects the glory of God the Father. I began to re-learn who God the Father is by watching the actions and listening to the words of Jesus.

Jesus’ Actions

My next step to settling my inconsistent view of God came when I read John 5:19,

“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

I thought I had read this verse many times before, but I felt like I was reading it for the first time! The actions that I read Jesus doing are the actions that God the Father not only approves but also does Himself.

Jesus’s Words

My final step from an inconsistent Triune doubt to harmonious Triune praise came when I read John 7:16–18,

So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true and in him, there is no falsehood.”

Jesus’ words and teachings are from God the Father. Jesus affirms the trustworthiness of God the Father. In fact, the very actions and words that I see in/hear from Jesus reflect God the Father, and both God the Father approve of Jesus as His Son and Jesus approves of God as His loving Father. There is no inconsistency within the Trinity; it was merely an inconsistency for me.

The reason I say that John 7:16–18 was “my final step” is because of what flooded my brain and soul afterward. The implications of John 1:1, 14; 5:19; 7:16–18 is this: What I see Jesus do reflects what God the Father does, and what I hear Jesus say reflects what God the Father says. If I love this Jesus and trust him, then I can (and ought to) love God the Father.

Application Flowing From A United Trinity

One of the struggles for me after my pastoral internship was reconciling God’s love for His church with the existence of wicked so-called pastors who continue to damage God’s people. While serving up in Denver, all I had for myself, my family, and the church was my belief in the sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity of the Bible, along with my prayers.

From my time reading John, I realized that I had unbiblical expectations of God. I don’t mean “unbiblical” in that they were evil, but rather that God never made such promises in the Bible. I thought that if I would just be faithful to the Bible, then God would ______. Worse still, I was judging God (the Judge of the universe) for not doing this or that even though He never promised such outcomes. God was not to be corrected; I was. And not only did God correct me but he did so at the perfect time, in the most loving, patient, and gracious way, through doctrinal inconsistencies, loved ones, therapy, and the Bible.[7]

When I hear Jesus declare, “I am the good shepherd”[8], I can know and trust that His declaration reflects who God the Father is, a God who is good at caring for His own. When I hear Jesus condemning the “hired hand” who cares nothing for the sheep, I know God the Father condemns such so-called pastors who wreak havoc in His church as ravenous wolves. When I see Jesus lovingly pursue the sheep whom the wolves scattered[9], then I know that God the Father, out of the love for His people, will go out to find and rescue me and all of you who have been spiritually abused by pastor-wolves and have found ourselves limping, wounded, and stranded;[10] And when I see Jesus make a whip and drive out of the temple the money-changers and the religious elite and I see Him overthrow the tables so that the common people[11], the financially poor and physically ill men, women, and children could enter the temple to commune with God, then I know that God the Father loves the lowly in heart and despises the haughty who use religion to be served.

My knowledge that God the Father is this way is not derived from merely watching and listening to Jesus but from the Scriptures’ testimony of who God the Father is. All of us who have known spiritual abuse, rejection, and abandonment — Here is what God the Father thinks of such so-called pastors and what His heart is towards you:

The word of the LORD came to me:

“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.

So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.

“Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:

As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:

Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.

As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel.

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD.

I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. ~ Ezekiel 34:1–16

God WILL judge abusive pastors; God WILL search and seek the scattered; God WILL bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.

The last promise God the Father makes in this section is, “I will feed them in justice.” How awesome of a promise is that? He will feed you justice… You will feast on God’s justice against those pastors who abused you, and it will be satisfying. Wanderers, those abused by bad pastors… God WILL bring you justice. He will.

All that Jesus did and said perfectly reflects God the Father’s character.

I’m finally able to trust my triune God. I can sing to Him once again with my whole self, mind, and heart. I even am starting to see some of the good that He intended through the pain. I wish I could get to the place where I can believe God is sovereign and good without seeing any of the good He is doing[12], but I’m eternally grateful for His patience and steadfast love for me.

The last piece of my healing journey came through therapy. I’d like to share this last piece in Part 3 of this series.

[1] Everyone has their own views on such matters, and I respect everyone; I do not desire to argue but merely let the reader into my thoughts/views so he/she can better understand my own personal struggle.

[2] While I believe in differing functions within the Trinity, I also believe in one united God (revealed as three unique persons: Father, Son, and Spirit).

[3] Up until this crisis, I had always believed that God was both sovereign and good.

[4] Like a benevolent well-meaning grandfather twiddling his thumbs because he is impotent towards the affairs of the world.

[5] An apt description of the devil.

[6] This would be the most terrifying possibility for me.

[7] Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench”.

[8] John 10:11

[9] John 9:35, “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him”

[10] I think this is what J.R.R. Tolkien meant in his poem, “The Riddle of Strider”, when he wrote, “Not all who wander are lost.”

[11] John 2:15–19

[12] John 20:29