Beyond Trauma
Introduction
Since no one naturally confesses and repents, a number of responses to my Triple Trauma article were obviously initiated by the Spirit of the Lord (Zech 12:10). I see them as a sign of a wave of good things coming. One especially profound response came from a humble brother of high profile, who sees himself as a “helper” to others. (Which is how I see my own future in ministry, as prophets serve apostles e.g. Acts 21:10-14). He sent me John Newton’s, I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44GH3NhdIA . Newton is best known for Amazing Grace, a hymn so famous that even sinners sing it freely. (Perhaps because it lacks the name of Jesus.) This hymn is equally profound, if very ignored, maybe since, ‘We should not drink wine while we are still babes.’ (Luther). That is, don’t expect contemporary Western Christians to discern and appreciate the strong discipline of God expounded by Newton. A discipline so strong that Hebrews 12:7 calls it “chastening/scourging/ punishing”, the same Greek word as for Jesus’ whipping (Matt 20:19)!
Tough Love
Newton’s hymn resonated deeply with my experience of trauma. He describes a prayer for godliness answered to the point of “despair” through exposing “The hidden evils of my heart”. For the Lord “let the angry pow’rs of hell Assault my soul in ev’ry part”….“Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried; “Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?” “Tis in this way,” the Lord replied, “I answer prayer for grace and faith.”. The broken Newton concludes that he heard from the Lord: “These inward trials I employ From self and pride to set thee free And break thy schemes of earthly joy That thou may’st find thy all in Me.” He discerns in the Spirit this was no mere demonic attack (Heb 5:14). He knew about Paul’s “a thorn was given me (divine passive voice i.e. given by God) in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor 12:7), de discerned deep within his torments were authored by the “Father of spirits”, just as surely as Isaiah’s ““Woe is me! For I am lost; for…” (Isa 6:5); Peter’s “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”” (Luke 5:8,) or the falling to the ground “as dead” of the beloved disciple (Rev 1:17). These traumas at the hand of God confirm to our innermost being (John 7:38) that God is both “with” and “for “us (Matt 1:23; 28:20; Rom 8:31). Their intensity communicates a divine reality and authenticity far beyond the hype of the contemporary Church.
Intensification of Light
As we witness an intensification of darkness across the world (cf. Isa 9:2), we should be anticipating a breaking forth of “marvellous light” (1 Pet 2:9). We should expect this because righteousness and unrighteousness proliferate under the same conditions. This is a message of the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matt 13:24-30). A generation ago Pentecostal teacher Derek Prince taught this, for as sexual permissiveness expanded the freedom of the Charismatic movement was released all across the Church, in the same atmosphere of liberty. Likewise today we can believe that as tensions accelerate, as Western “wokeness” expand in an atmosphere of traumas induced by war, pandemic, cost of living crises etc., the time is coming when we will soon “again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” (Mal 3:18). How will this happen?
Releasing the Presence of the Spirit of the Father
That “humility comes before honour” (Prov 18:12) is a global truth “in Christ” (Luke 24:2; Phil 2:5-11; 1 Pet 3:18; Rev 5:6 etc.). The highest honour in the universe is the revelation of God as Father (John 14:6, 9; 17:1-5), a glory imparted only to those humbled by his mighty hand (1 Pet 5:6). In the Lord’s wisdom, my triple trauma experience has the purpose of becoming someone in whom others can see “a man under authority”. The Son of God marvelled that a Gentile could testify “I too am a man under authority…” (Matt 8:9-10) recognised the Lord was always obedient to the will of his Father. Here was a man given to Jesus by the Father to incite his faith for the day when he could proclaim, “All authority has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). To achieve this goal Christ must offer up his body, soul and spirit to God in naked faith at the moment of his abandonment on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). This was so God might become our Holy and Righteous Father (John 17:11, 25). Jesus cries out not seeing what is coming, but wholly trusting in the past acts of God for his own deliverance and the salvation of the world. His great act of self-abandonment was so that we might have a revelation of God as our Father in total contrast to all our human experiences of fathering. This is the re-creative disciplining genius of the Father of our spirits.
Abandoned but Not
Our Father has just one template to make us holy and righteous like Jesus (Acts 3:14; 1 Thess 2:10). He repeats in us how he brought his Son to glory (Rom 8:28-30). So, throughout scripture we find a sequence of humiliation for exaltation, suffering with a view to glory. The pit, enslavement and injustice must go before elevation in the life of Joseph, the wilderness must precede the Promised Land, Paul “despairs of life itself…carrying in his body the death of Jesus etc.” (2 Cor 1:8; 4:10) in order that “the power of the resurrection” prevails through him for others (2 Cor 1:9b; Phil 3:10). Following the life of Christ, the greater the trauma submitted to in faith as ultimately ordained by our Father (Eph 1:13), the richer the depth of our sharing in Christ’s trust in “my/our Father and God” (John 20:17; Heb 12:2). Traumas like divorce, rejection, illness, addiction, prison, financial catastrophe and so on; have one great purpose in the plan of God, the revelation of pure Fatherhood to us that we might communicate this love to others (Gal 1:16). Through decades of persecution and misunderstanding in the household of God, right up to the week of “Triple Trauma”, I have grown able to discern the work of the Holy Father in overseeing my many tribulations and the fruit borne through them. Which is a healthy HOLY fear of God as my own all-loving Father (cf. Gen 31:42, 53; Isa 11:3a; Heb 5:7-10).
A Greater Revival
A great healing revival is coming, a healing of the deepest wound in the soul of man – fatherlessness. This will be far deeper than the healing revivals of the 50’s, the power of the Spirit in the Charismatic renewal of the 60’s or the Jesus Movement of the 70’s. All these were good, but none were complete in maturity. In prayer about these things, I saw something like a horizontal funnel, small at one end much broader at the other. I think this means that God will soon multiply his power as a Holy and Righteous Father (John 17:11, 25) to many, this in turn will issue in an explosion of authentic spiritual fathering. This revival will prepare a dull unaware Church for the day when we will need to be able to hear and discern words given by “the Spirit of (y)our Father” (Matt 10:20, 16-23). All glory to God for such great things he has planned for his children (1 John 3:1).