Pastor's Blog

Hate makes us cringe.  For some reason, it's one of those emotions that we instinctively know to be wrong and to which usually we don't want to confess.  We paint it over with slightly different colors.  So we'll admit that we don't like someone.  This is usually followed by an explanation as to why they are not all that likeable.  Now it could be that we don't hate someone we don't like.  But the point is that saying we don't like them seems morally defensible in contrast to confessing that we just plain hate them.

Hatred is deadly.  It's the base from which come murderous thoughts, malicious desires and evil intents.  It makes our tongues spit out slander.  It causes our eyes to see with suspicion.  It can lead to physical violence given the opportunity.

Hate reveals lack of respect.  We place others beneath us.  They become an enemy not so much for what they've done, but for who they are.  We simply can't tolerate them.  So they are no good, beyond our concern, outside our acceptance.  We fail to observe them as made in the image of God, loved by Him as much as He loves us, worthy of honor and respect.

Something inside us makes us reject them.  Somehow they make us uncomfortable.  Often their errors and sins irritate us deeply.  Whatever they may do, we find offensive.  But the root of the problem is frequently in us, not them.   Maybe they remind us too much of our own failings.  Sometimes their ways irk us precisely because it's so much the way we act.  We end up hating them because that is easier than fighting our own failures and shortcomings.  If they can be described as bad, then maybe we can be seen as good.  Yet in reality, we're both the same.

When hatred comes for this kind of reason, the cure is often to understand others with the same kindness with which we need to be treated.  Humility enables us to admit that they have the same temptations, troubles and tensions as we.  An understanding of God's grace to us can be the door that opens to that grace being given by us to others.

We can never forgive others truly until we accept forgiveness fully ourselves.  God's grace is mysterious in its workings.  Encountering and experiencing it changes us.  And the way it moves us from hatred to love of our enemy, is by granting us an understanding heart.  Seeing how wrong we were, our foolish we acted and our far off we've gone, we suddenly find compassion for others who also have failed.  As we begin to see where they're at, from what they've come and how they struggle, our hearts begin to melt and softness grows in us to be expressed as tenderness towards them.

Hate cripples the heart into callousness.  Then we can't feel anymore, anything.  May God grant us the ability to see others as they truly are, so that we can become what we surely should be.  Walking together opens our eyes to see that life is much the same for everyone.  How can I hate someone who is really so much like me and struggles just as I?   Oh God, grant us an understanding heart.  Amen.

David C. Slauenwhite      

Everyone gets angry over something at times.  We react to situations we feel are unfair or outrageous.  Anger not only may be justified, but appropriate.  To be calm in the presence of evil, passive in the face of aggression, unconcerned over exploitation, is not demonstrating a quiet spirit so much as apathy.  "Be angry and sin not," is the scriptural approach.   At times anger should be expressed, but with control and directed towards resolving issues, restraining evil and developing solutions.

Anger as a crippling condition is different.  Paul's letter to the Galatians categorizes it as a "work of the flesh."   It comes from a spiritual condition that is self destructive and is motivated by self will.  It reveals a life of self centeredness where circumstances and relationships are viewed primarily on how they affect us.    Explosions of anger are used not only to express personal feelings of hurt or distress but to manipulate others into compliance or to control their behavior.

Nothing is so personal as anger.  Nothing so reveals our personality or spirit as the way in which anger is handled and expressed.  Raging and ranting with words that wound shows maliciousness and nastiness.  Physical violence or threat of it warns that we are out of self control.  Long term grudges and sulkiness says our spirit is out of touch with God, who is loving and merciful and gracious. 

For whatever reason, which only counseling may uncover, some people are best described as "angry persons."  They are described by actions which disturb and destroy others.  But they are also known by what they lack.   Joy is missing.  Happiness is only seen when they get their way.  They don't enjoy humor and laughter is rare or reserved.  They are not at peace with themselves and their self image is usually negative.  Crippled by an angry attitude, they become paranoid, lonely and defensive.  They easily and commonly blame others for all that goes wrong or difficult in their life.  They are just plain miserable deep inside.

The Bible offers the fruit of the Spirit as the solution.  This is developed by making Christ the Lord of life in all its details and by living in continual dependance upon the Holy Spirit.  Anger may come from not accepting our true value before God, driving us to find it in being perfect in all things.  The resulting and inevitable failure brings shame covered by angrily attacking other's flaws.   By accepting Jesus as our Lord, we can lay down our pride and self concerns, knowing He loves us just as we are.  By learning to live in conscious relationship with the Spirit, we gain His power and help in facing stress and failure. Soon, we're not working "in the flesh" to be good and happy and acceptable to others.  Rather, we're showing the presence of God in us and becoming fruitful in doing good and being happy. 

Anger comes because we can't accept ourselves.   But Jesus brings us inner peace with outer calmness as He teaches us to focus on Him instead of ourselves.   Through His Spirit we can live without the need to be in control, no longer defined nor destroyed by any failure.   Now we are safe and contended in the joy of knowing God has accepted us.  And that leaves us nothing to be angry about.

David C. Slauenwhite

Anxiety is not quite the same as fear, at least as I see it.   Fear is about something fairly concrete.  It relates to a past experience or a present threat or a future probability.  You get ready to fight it or to flee it.  There is an action you can take that evades or evicts the threat.

But anxiety is vague, though just as real emotionally.  It is the dread of an uncertainty.  It exists as a mental state of apprehension, yet lacks a definite basis for certainty.  Fear has a focus outside of yourself, but anxiety is an emotion that has a freezing hold on your inner thoughts, feelings and ability to function.  It is worry!  It is well described by the comic relief of Mark Twain who said: 'I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.'

Even when you have done all that can be done, anxiety will torment you.   It's the 'what if' question.  There's never a conclusive answer to it.  Multiple scenarios always lie backstage to be rolled out should your preparations and preventions not prevail against the imagined threat.  Nothing is ever certain in this life and your mind grabs onto that fact to make some uncertainty the most probable reality.   

Anxiety torments.  Your mind becomes obsessed with pending possibilities.  Doom is definite in your forecast, often moving you into attitudes and actions that create the catastrophe you considered inevitable.  Anxiety is the adult version of the child's story about Chicken Little's forecast that the sky was falling.  While fear impels you to run away from something, anxiety breeds an impulse to run around in circles of confusion and chaos.

Trust is the antidote.  You have to trust God.  Faith is the basic foundation of your life.  Anxiety reveals that your faith isn't fixed on God, but on circumstances or your ability to control them.  Jesus deals with anxiety in Matthew 6:25- 34.  He warns about worrying over small things that are too big for you to handle, like food and clothing and shelter.  His solution: seek the Kingdom of God as your priority.   In other words, stop trying to run your world, choosing instead to place yourself in God's realm of sovereignty.  Relinquish control to God.  Trust Him!  Put yourself under his domain by yielding to his authority and depending on his power.  Take the risk of letting God do it or of losing it all. 

Anxiety is crippling because it distracts you from God to yourself.  And you're just not big or strong or smart enough to do it all.   And you know it.   Move your trust from self to God, and get a good night's sleep.  He will come through.    Just remember, you can't do it any better anyway.

David C. Slauenwhite

You couldn't help but feel for the poor guy.  He clung to his rope, frozen in fright.  The captain had assigned several of the crew to paint the sheer side of the huge ship.  They were slung down from the top on a single rope to which was attached a sling in which they sat.  While the rest swung out with bravado, this grown man gripped his rope with both hands, crying in terror as he hung high over the deck.  There was no sympathy, only mocking from his comrades.

Maybe the text in 1 John about perfect love casting out fear isn't meant for these kinds of situations.  After all, if you've got a phobia, having love isn't likely to lull you to sleep in its presence.  Like, I'm terrified of snakes, period!   Don't tell me to love them.  I'm afraid; I hate them; I will kill them.  (Snake lovers need not email about this phobic driven murderous mind set; I'm not even remotely ready to change my emotions or intentions.)

Yet, I wonder if love isn't something that can help.  Our youngest granddaughter has a severe and life threatening allergy to hornet stings.  While at Canada's Wonder Land, she was buzzed by a couple.  But the instant she cried out in terror, her sister and cousin crowded in, surrounding her with their bodies, hugging her close and holding themselves out to take the hornet stings.  I was emotionally overwhelmed at their love for her, amazed at how they did not flinch away from the hornets as they buzzed within inches of their exposed skin.

Fear is not a chosen condition. It is a response to an experienced past.  Something happened that has left us unwilling to face that pain or hurt or danger or situation again.  When confronted with that circumstance or possible experience again, we emotionally react with dread that moves us to panic and flight.  Fear as an emotion overrides our reason when logic might say that we're safe.  But love is greater than logic or emotion.  Because love is greater than fear, it is able to overcome it.   

If you are crippled by fear, whether as a generalized condition or in a specific circumstance, while attempting various means to overcome it, consider this.  God loves you!  He will watch over you even in the most frightening situation of dread and terror.  He will surround you with his arms, hug and hold you close, offering himself as the victim in your place.  He will take your sting for you. 

Jesus demonstrated this already by dying for our sins on the cross.  He suffered death for all of us.  In the worse than can happen, he's already taken it.  Therefore, the Bible trumpets the truth out for us to hear, " O death, where is your sting?"  God in love defeated death.  Now his love for us can remove the fear of death in us.  And if love can overcome the worse fear, how much more shall it conquer all other fears.  "Nothing can separate us from the love of God."  The Bible therefore announces, "we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."   Love works by bringing us to trust.  Trusting God, in whatever we face, can remove fear from whatever we fight.

David C. Slauenwhite