Triple Trauma
Introduction
Prophets/intercessors are gifts to the Church (Eph 2:20; 4:11) granted heightened spiritual awareness through multiple traumas so that they might bring messages of grace to others. This explains the traumatic character of my last week. My triply traumatic week must not be interpreted simply in terms of natural realities but understood “in Christ” for whom all was created (Col 1:16). I have tried to summarise the three events in a way that will profit “the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” (1 Tim 3:15), because I believe that the plan of God is continually being outworked in the life journey of prophets such as I (Am 3:7), and that the Spirit commonly shifts the mode of the prophet’s mindset before he shifts the Church. With respect to each trauma, I will record the event, a surface/initial/natural interpretation, then an exposure of sin for refining through discipline and consequent repentance (Heb 12:5-11. Cf. Rom 8:28).
Trauma 1: The Trauma of Prayerlessness
On Monday night 4/7 I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, alternating hot and cold. It was unpleasant but quite bearable, for the real pain was yet to come. After a while I realised the fever was a reaction to the booster injection I had early that day, and as I began to rehearse the vents around the injection deep embarrassment fell upon me. The week before I had received, from the same nurse, a pneumonia jab in one arm and a shingles injection in the other arm and told her when I was revisiting there had been “no problems”. When she counselled me to wait in the clinic for 15 minutes before driving home, I promptly ignored her. Overconfidence and arrogance were my sins, but the Spirit of the Lord went on to reprimand me (Heb 12:6) with a painfulness in proportion to his gentleness (2 Cor 10:1) for not praying before having the booster. Would I still have had an anaphylactic response (fever), probably, but it would have been experienced in the beautiful presence of the Lord that gave him joy and peace without grieving the Spirit (Eph 4:30). Jesus forgive me/us for our failure to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).
Trauma 2: The Trauma of Insubordination
I received an email from our regional bishop on Wednesday 6/7 headed PRIORITY, saying he needed to see me the next day and could come to our parish office. Having known him for several decades as a mild-mannered guy, and not knowing the purpose of the meeting, I wasn’t too alarmed. On Thursday morning 7/7 he turned up very sombre, opened in prayer then told me there had been an “anonymous complaint” about my morning sermon on 19th June. He had checked the sermon out on the parish website and had come to the conclusion that my criticism of the archbishop was of such an order that he could not see how I could continue to “hold the archbishop’s license to preach”. I am quite certain that if he had the authority, I would have lost my licence to minister. He urged me, repeatedly, to make an appointment to see the archbishop as he was flying overseas within 48 hours. Stripping me of my licence, which in the Anglican church system is quite possible, would have caused mayhem in the parish and would have been a significant victory for the devil. In submission to the bishop, I promptly made an appointment to see the archbishop (one space remained, on Tuesday 12/7) until her return from the UK in August. I let my prayer team know straight away, the church council know of events Saturday morning and the whole congregation the next day. Everyone fell to prayer. PTL, Donna and I felt very supported.
When I saw Abp Kaye on Tuesday, accompanied by an advocate (Dale A), we were able to freely converse about Jesus, the cross and the kingdom of God as sister and brothers and with appropriate vulnerability. She did talk about the anonymous complaint and the need to consider the impact of preaching honour hearers. Importantly, Abp Kaye has never renounced her charismatic-Pentecostal experience as an 18-year-old via Teen Challenge, nor forgotten when I first met her with Donna in 1980 at a Melbourne diocese selection conference. She was accepted as a candidate for ordination, we were rejected as insufficiently Anglican. This is probably still true! But then again, I am not your standard…. either.
What was my sin on this occasion? I have long argued that women can fill all ministry roles, and that husbands and wives should be constantly “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ” (Eph 5:21). However, the fact is that I was dismissive of Donna’s wise warning about in preaching about the errors of the archbishop it only needed to be reported by one person back to the diocese for me to get in trouble. I should have paid more attention to the God-given wisdom of the one given me as a trusted counsellor by heaven, and at least asked my personal prayer team to pray over this possibility. The complaint may still have been made, but the grace of God would have flowed more quickly and more freely. I am deeply embarrassed. “Lord, help us submit to one another.”
Trauma 3: The Trauma of Utter Foolishness
From time to time, Donna rebukes me for putting on/taking off my (not cheap) hearing aids in the car, and despite some accidents I never really have listened. Then on Thursday last week I dropped a hearing aid and could only find it when I waited until dark and located it by torch. Unexpectedly, this outwardly trivial incident caused me great inner anguish, as the Spirit of the Lord spoke penetratingly to me with words that made me feel like the idiot described in Proverbs “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” It seems my prayers for lowliness and ever-increasing humility in the way of the cross are being answered! “Jesus, teach us the wisdom of listening.”
For What Purpose?
God graced me (2 Cor 12:9) with a week of trauma, for Jesus said on his way to crucifixion and enthronement over all (John 6:62), “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” (Luke 12:48). It is a case of little vision-little suffering, much vision-much suffering (Luke 24:26). Whilst God treats prophets more strongly than other Christians (cf. James 3:1), all who hold “the testimony of Jesus…the Spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10), that is all Christians, must be subject to the glorifying discipline of the Father (Heb 12:5-11). I have learnt to live with the pains, and subsequent joys, of godly discipline for the sake of an ever increasingly revelation of Christ, himself “made perfect through suffering” (Heb 2:10; 5:9). In response to God-appointed fiery (1 Pet 4:12), we may submit, like Jesus, or run away, like Jonah. During a unique period of prosperity and freedom from persecution the Western Church has missed out on the deep holiness and godliness which was always the Saviour’s desire to share with his people. My sense is that times of inner and outer trial, will soon by God’s grace be sent upon us. In the great plan of God in Christ (Eph 1:9-10), my “triple trauma” is a part of a preparation for you for what is coming. I pray you too will turn from prayerlessness, insubordination and foolishness (Gal 3:1) to receive the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:18). PTL