Trauma, Complementarity of Gifts and Revelation
Introduction
Coming to the close of a 4-week break, I have been under continual pressure in the night hours, which has been a significant strain on Donna and me. Yet since the scripture teaches that “the pangs of childbirth” give birth to new realities (Rom 8:22-26; Gal 4:19, 26), I have been impressed by a recent shock to write some things down for the benefit of all. This started when an old friend raised with me the acute question of why brothers PB and NS, plus many others, have not “seen” in the Spirit their mutual God-given complementarity of gifting. Why, for example, do those with evangelistic giftings want to be prophets, or pastors long to be apostles and so on? The functional unity of the Church for which Christ prayed (John 17:20-26) depends on a realignment of the 5-fold gifts which the ascended Jesus personally bequeathed on his Bride for her eternal well-being (Eph 4:7-11). Seeking the Lord in prayer for an answer, a reply was given. Its fruitfulness in the Church, in Perth and beyond, depends upon significant shared suffering. The people of God have not yet been open to a vison of the glory this will bring. This we will need a renewed both a revelation of the holy relationships within the Trinity and the glories of marital life.
Jesus and his Father
In his decision to become the Word made flesh, and fallen flesh at that (John 1:14; Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Tim 3:16), Christ adopted a status and condition radically different from his most-exalted heavenly Father. This was something in which he rejoiced “in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21) as the pleasure of the Lord flowed over his lowly humanity (Luke 3:22; Acts 10:36). It was in the glory of the “infinite qualitative difference” (Kierkegaard, Barth) between the Father and himself, that Christ prayed those who believe in him “may be one even as we are one” (John 17:22). Since this is a matter of sharing in God’s own eternal “glory” (John 17:5, 22, 24) the Church is currently missing out on something vastly wonderful. When the gifts of God are properly recognised and in holy order the Church will become a vessel into which the Lord will pour out his own limitless splendour, resulting in a magnificent manifestation of the truth that we are “vessels of mercy…prepared beforehand for glory” (Rom 9:22; 2 Cor 4:7). The result must be what we call long for, “revival”. We can, and must, enter the consciousness of Christ rejoicing with him in the call of God on those “greater than” ourselves as he rejoiced in the Father’s elevated position (John 14:28; Phil 2:3-5).
Humbled through Trauma for Glory
Scripture testifies that in the power of the Spirit the Father and Son are mutually glorified through the sacrifice of the cross. Jesus prays, “Father, glorify your name.” through being “lifted up” on the cross (John 12:28,32). Suffering is not the cost of glory but the means of glory (Luke 24:26; Bingham). This is the true Way of God (John 14:6) because the Lord can only share with us his lowliness-and-power (Phil 3:10) by handing us over to traumas. It is an inescapable truth that “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble…” (Prov 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5). The “lifting up” promised to us as we submit to the wisdom of God (James 4:10) is nothing less than a share in the exaltation of Jesus; “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus bevery knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:8-10). It isn’t some especially religious sort of suffering that elevates us into an awareness of our being already seated with Christ so that we live in accordance with our elevated adoption into God (Eph 1:3, 5; 2:6), it is all suffering submitted to the Lord for his honour and praise and glory (1 Cor 10:31). The very ordinary example that follows illuminates this.
Bitten for Jesus
The psalmist exalts, “Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their (human enemies) teeth.” (Ps 145:6). In my own case, the teeth that tore me two days ago were from a once friendly dog. On that day I prayed decisively with Donna for protection, but I was thinking only of the roads. As we were travelling to the dog’s residence I said to Donna, rather elatedly, “I had a good sleep last night.” To which she replied, “Actually, you were growling last night like a dog, like Rocco (the Siberian Huskie who belongs to our daughter’s partner).” In due course when we arrived at our destination and I went up to pat Rocco he turned on me, lacerating my hand, arm, and knee. There was quite a bit of blood, Donna being as traumatised as me, and I was shaking in shock. I went off speedily to the local GP for wound bandaging, a tetanus injection, and antibiotics. The connection between my night-growling and the dog attack must be a deeply spiritual matter (demonic?) and mysterious matter, but the Spirit has shown me the following for the sake of my personal self-humiliation and to help us all.
Insight in Trauma
First, I had a superior attitude to my beloved Donna, who is “not an animal person” about my original instant friendship with Rocco. This arrogance “grieved the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph 4:30) because our ability to get on with beasts is a God-given strength and not a hierarchical ordering. All the glory is God’s! Secondly, and much more generally, whereas I felt quite pleased with myself for having what I thought was a tension free night, I should have openly and vocally given glory to God alone! Since marriage is a reflection of the “profound mystery” that Christ and the Church are one in his covenant love (Eph 5:2-32; Heb 13:20), it is only as we live as the bone and flesh of Jesus (Eph 5:30 KJV) that we can discern and live as complementary members of each other. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Cor 12:12).
Conclusion
After 50 years of following Jesus and thousands of hours of prayer, forged through many sufferings, the wisdom of God seems able to teach me divine truths through anything. Even through something as down to earth as a dog attack. Some of this depends on my discovering, after 47years and 9 months of marriage, just how different Donna is from me, and how great and glorious is this difference. One of the reasons for the superficial unity of the gifts in the Church is the mundaneness of Christian marriages, beyond that, we must learn to yield by faith to yield all our traumas to the Lord in prayer. As we grow in these truths, we will recognise this message really isn’t about John, Donna, and Rocco, but about the glory of Jesus in and for us all.