There is a phenomenon that I have witnessed in many people who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, who over time seem to lose their forward momentum and relinquish the power and authority we have in him and return to old ways of living again. In full honesty, this was my own experience for many years of my adult life. What I ponder now is, what causes this? Knowing this is a question with many possible answers, I will here only discuss what I can personally attest to, which I do believe to be very common in our world.
I would submit to you that perhaps this "backsliding" has a lot to do with pain. I would say that this pain is not just physical, but also includes (perhaps more often) emotional pain and trauma. I would also add that this would not just be the painful things themselves that we have endured, but rather what we think and believe about those events, and how we manage the emotions that go along with them. I believe the problem for us arises when we have a lack of trust in Jesus to handle these highly guarded areas of our heart, often due to issues we have with trust based on our prior experiences. I believe that God has designed our minds in a way that allow defenses to be put into place to help us to survive those situations when they happened. Although a defense we may have developed as a child in reaction to a painful event certainly had a purpose at the time (when we lacked skills and resources to cope in a healthier way), these defenses often do not serve us well as adults and can cause lots of problems in our lives.
I also recognize that as human beings, especially in our modern Western culture, that we have a nature bent towards comfort and a tendency to try and avoid pain at all costs. This seems to me in a way by design, but what if our cultural view on pain is of great detriment to our minds and spirits as well? What if, the pain we experience when feeling negative emotions is actually by design too, intending to point us in the direction of where the source problem is that needs to be addressed? I would also submit that not all cultures have viewed pain in the way our modern one does, as something to be avoided at all costs, embracing a very individualistic view of suffering.
What if we can begin to view pain and suffering as a way in which God reveals to us the things within ourselves that need to be further refined, the things that ultimately keep us from experiencing his love in full measure, what would happen then? What if, when confronted by the emotional pain of our past, instead of choosing to numb out with alcohol, drugs, medication, food, shopping addictions, workaholism, and a long list of other things, what if we chose to face those things head on and invite the Lord to help us to see what defenses we are acting out of and to show us his truth in those areas? How would that change our hearts towards ourselves, those around us, and especially the Lord himself?
Jesus did not ever beat around the bush about pain and suffering, he was very clear that those who follow him will face many challenges and hardships, but the picture he paints is clear, he walks through it with us, and there is renewed life on the other side of the pain. It is therefore my conclusion that a very common cause of this "backsliding," is really caused by our desire to avoid pain and suffering at the end of the day. When Jesus calls us to follow him, there is to be a dying of our old self to make room for who God is calling us to be in him. Paul said "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here," (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I will admit that when I first became a Christian years ago, I think I subconsciously adopted a common way of thinking in our Western Christian culture that indirectly sends a message that when we accept Jesus all the painful things of our past should be gone! Right? I'm afraid that's just not what I see in scripture. When "...Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me," (Matthew 16:24 ESV) I don't see a picture of an easy life at all. I believe this verse is describing the process of sanctification that we are all called to go through when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. This involves self sacrifice, the putting aside of our own ambitions for the sake of becoming holy for God's purposes. Knowing how pain and trauma have affected my own life, and my relationship with the Lord, I can say that without facing those things I could not continue to grow in my relationship with him. How could I if I choose to keep building walls that keep him out? I'll offer that most of us probably don't build walls to directly keep out the Lord, but walls are walls, they are intended to block something from getting in or out. If He has called us to "...be transformed by the renewing of your mind," (Romans 12:2 NIV) I just don't see how this is possible if we aren't giving him access to the darkest recesses of who we are, past and present. If we are self medicating with substances or activities or whatever, then we are not truly relying on God fully, we are building walls and compartments and telling him that he doesn't get to go in there. We can do this, it's our choice, but I believe it is a way to either stop growing in our faith, or to lose it altogether. We need to believe that we can trust Jesus, he is safe, and we can trust him with the most painful events of our lives.
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