Thanks for the Memories: Gratitude for God's Least Appreciated Gift

By David Ryser

Forgiveness based on forgetfulness is a Christian version of a frontal lobotomy.  (Don Allender)

For the longest time, I have been taught that forgiveness is synonymous with forgetfulness.  This teaching has caused me more harm than I could ever imagine.  And my ultimate rejection of it has brought me healing beyond my wildest imagination.

I have been reading Fil Anderson’s wonderful book, Breaking the Rules.  One of the main themes of the book is the subject of memory.  Specifically, the Bible has a lot to say about remembering (and remembrance, and other related words) in regard to both God and man.

Sometimes the things remembered are good and pleasant.  At other times, the memories are bad and painful.

Both are a gift from God.  Memory itself is a gift from God.

Without memory, we could not learn and develop.  We could not build on our successes and learn from our mistakes.

We embrace good memories and savor them.  Memories of a beautiful sunset or a majestic vista.  Recalling the loving words or the touch of a loved one.  The laughter of our children and grandchildren.  Memories of people we’ve loved who have passed away.  The companionship of good friends.  My favorite sports teams winning the championship.

I just love a good memory.  Don’t you?

But not all memories are good.  Some are bad.  Some are painful.  Memories of abuse or abandonment.  Memories of when we were treated unfairly or were misunderstood.  Times when we were betrayed or disappointed by others.

And what about the regrets and remorse for the things we have done?

Memories of embarrassing myself by my behavior or by the way I have treated other people.  People I have let down or hurt.  People I have betrayed or manipulated for my own gain.  My shortcomings as a friend, a parent, or a spouse.

Even these memories are a gift from God.

We need to understand this if we are going to get the benefit from bad memories.  I tend to shy away from bad memories because they’re painful.  And I’m not a big fan of pain.  Neither is American Christianity, whose religious snake-oil salesmen peddle a religion that tells me these bad memories are an attack of the devil (or some such nonsense) and recommends rebuking or fighting them in some other way.

Usually this involves using the name of Jesus as some kind of magic word.  I’ve discovered that rebuking a work of God in my life…even when I use Jesus’ name…is a colossal waste of time.

Because it was God who was bringing the painful memories back to me.  And I needed to embrace them so I could learn the lessons from them that I needed to learn.  Memories of things done to me typically manifested the pain associated with them as anger, hatred or bitterness…or all three.  Dealing with memories of things said or done to me were relatively easy to deal with, especially since I’d never suffered the kind of abuse some have experienced in life.  For me, dealing with these memories simply required forgiveness.

Forgiveness, not forgetfulness.  I still remember, but without pain.

The memories that continued to cause me pain…pain so strong that I fled from them…involved my treatment of others.  God kept bringing them up, and I kept running from them (usually by refusing to think about them and cramming them back into the box I kept them in…out of sight, out of mind).

But God wouldn’t let up.  He was trying to give me a gift.

Because if I didn’t face these memories…and resolve them…I would fail to learn the lessons from them.  I would be doomed to repeat behaviors that had caused hurt and harm to others.  And if there was anything I wanted more than to avoid pain, it was that I wanted to stop causing it.  Because I kept hurting people.  I didn’t mean to.  I didn’t want to.  But the carnage of hurt people and destroyed relationships continued to pile up behind me as I walked through life.

I wanted it to stop.  I wanted desperately to break this pattern.  But I didn’t know how.  I sought God about it.  As I read Fil’s awesome book, the answer finally came to me.

Remember.

So I decided to embrace the bad memories.  Embrace the pain.  And the feelings of shame.  Accept bad memories as a gift from God…because they are.

And then God and I took a stroll down Memory Lane.  The memories came flooding back.  I experienced them and saw the lessons I should have learned from them.

And the pain and shame were gone.

The pain and shame are still gone.  Do I have remorse or regrets?  Yes, plenty of both.  Do I experience sadness when I remember some of these things?  Yes.  But there is no pain or shame.  I am free to explore these memories and receive the transforming power of God that will result in changed behavior and no more harm done to others.

Will I be perfect at this?  Probably not.  I’ll likely do or say something stupid…hurt someone…and need to ask forgiveness.  But I believe my life will be more about healing others than about harming them from now on.

And I’m so grateful….

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Sacred Similes: Religion is Like....

By David Ryser

I sincerely believe that institutional, religious Christianity has probably done more to hinder the ideals of Jesus than any other agency in the world.  (Fil Anderson)

I love similes.  There’s just something about them that fires my imagination.  And a simile can be a great teaching tool.  The teacher can explain a new concept by likening it to something that is familiar to the student.  Then the teacher makes the connection between the old and the new, and the student more fully understands the new.

As a master teacher, Jesus used similes to explain the Kingdom of God.  He would begin His lesson by saying, “The Kingdom of God/Heaven is like….”  And then He would talk about sheep, birds, flowers, vineyards, wedding feasts, etc.

When teaching about the Kingdom of God, Jesus used more similes than scriptures.  Perhaps we should, also.  If we would follow Jesus’ methodology, I suspect we would be more effective in our preaching and teaching.

So in the spirit of following Jesus’ example, I would like to describe the religious system…and our interaction with it…using similes.

Religion is like a cowboy who goes into town and enters a saloon.  He proceeds to consume a large number of alcoholic beverages.  As the hours go by, he becomes increasingly intoxicated.  His friends decide to play a prank on him.  So they go outside the saloon, untie the cowboy’s horse, retie the horse facing the opposite direction, remove the saddle, and then reattach the saddle backwards onto the horse.

The next day, the cowboy is awakened by the ranch foreman who is kicking his bed and shouting, “Get up, cowboy!  Are you planning to sleep all day?  Get to work!”  The cowboy is jolted awake, and says, “Hey, boss, I’m sorry.  I got in late from town last night, and I was exhausted.”  The foreman asks, “What happened?”  To which the cowboy replies, “Oh, some jerk cut my horse’s head off, and I had to lead him home all the way from town by putting my fingers down his windpipe.”

When we go into the religious saloon (church building) every Sunday and get drunk on religion (the traditional church service), is it any wonder that we wake up a day late, a dollar short, and reeking of  horse manure?

And do we learn from this experience?  Of course not.  When next Sunday rolls around, we do it all over again.

We’re like the two college students who went to the Gulf Coast for spring break.  As they were walking along near the seashore, looking at the shops, they saw a sign that read:  Caribbean Cruise!  Only $50!   So they entered the shop.  The first student paid his money and was directed to go through a door behind the counter.  As he went through the door, he was knocked on the head.  Then he was tied…unconscious…to a log and floated off into the Gulf.

The same scene was repeated for the second student.

Hours later, the students began to regain consciousness.  Their logs had floated so that they were next to one another.  The first student looked over at the second student and asked, “Do they serve meals on this cruise?  I’m starving!”  To which the second student replied. “I don’t think so.   They didn’t last year.”

Are we stuck on stupid?  When will we learn that the solution to ineffective religion is not more ineffective religion?

We go to a traditional church service week after week…expecting to get something out of it…and then sit passively in rows watching a religious production (one that is more or less entertaining).  We may get to sing a bit.  And for sure we are going to dig into our wallets, fairly early in the service (Before the preaching.  This is not an accident.), to pay for the privilege of attending the service again next week.  Then we endure a mind-numbing motivational speech that usually equates to:  “God’s good.  You’re not.  Try harder.”

Just thinking about it gives me the chills.

And so it goes.  Week after week.  We go to “the house of God” expecting to meet with Him.  But He never seems to be there.  If the church building is the house of God (and it isn’t, by the way), then why is He never home?

How rude!  We’re told that we are invited guests to God’s house every week.  And He doesn’t even have the common decency to show up and receive His guests!

So why have I been attending church services lately?  Given my attitude about them, I find it somewhat ironic that for the last two months…at the direction of God…I have found myself sitting in a traditional (and really pathetic) church service every Sunday.  Lest I seem a bit of a hypocrite, I would like to pose the following question:  “If you wanted to break someone out of a prison, where would you go?”

To the prison, of course!

I’m just going to where the prisoners are.  Prisoners of religion.  They’re nice people.  There’s nothing wrong with them that a good jailbreak wouldn’t cure.

And when I go to a traditional church service, I am not going there expecting to get anything.  I’m going there to bring something.  More accurately, I’m going there to bring Someone.  It has been great fun to watch the looks on people’s faces when they feel the Spirit of God in the church service like they haven’t felt Him in years.

Because God and I made a deal.  If I have to go to church, so does He.

And, sooner or later, the people in this church will have to decide whether they want Him to stay.  They will need to make the required changes to accommodate Him.  And if they don’t, He will leave.

And so will I.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

What's in Your Wallet?: Is it the Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Card?

By David Ryser

I wouldn’t have been a Christian without hell.  I guess it’s kind of like sex--it sells.  (Matthew Paul Turner)

In his wonderful book, Churched, Matthew Paul Turner relates how, as a child, he “got saved” every time the pastor preached about hell or the end times.  Terror of hell or the Tribulation drove this tenderhearted boy to the altar time and again to insure that his Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Card (which also conveniently doubles as a Get-Out-of-the-Tribulation Card) was still good.

I didn’t realize this card came with an expiration date.

I had occasion to think about this recently.  And I have no one to blame but myself.  I was sitting in a traditional church service…even though I know better.  The speaker was lamenting that no one preaches about hell anymore.  I’ll admit to being a bit bewildered by this statement because I wasn’t aware that we Christians have been commissioned to preach hell.  I thought we were supposed to proclaim Jesus.

Silly me.

I’ve heard many times over the years that Jesus spoke more about hell than about heaven.  I don’t know if He did or didn’t.  I never looked it up to see if this statement is true.  It may be.  It may not be.  I don’t really care.  And I’m not easily motivated to look something up…or to do anything else…when I don’t care.

And I don’t care about whether Jesus spoke more about hell than He did about heaven.  Because Jesus did not come to earth primarily to speak about either hell or heaven.

Jesus came, in great part, to proclaim the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven--take your pick, they’re the same thing).  And I would be willing to bet that Jesus spoke more about the Kingdom of God than He did about hell and heaven combined.

So why doesn’t anyone preach about the Kingdom of God?

Because hell sells.  Hell is good for business.  We need hell to make religion work.  We need hell to keep people in church.  Wayne Jacobsen once mused that the reason we preach on how terrible hell is (and it is a bad place, make no mistake), is because we need something worse than the church service to threaten people with so they will come to church and sit through it.

Hell is so good for the religion business that if it didn’t exist, we would invent it.

So what has all of this preaching on hell gotten us?  Well, for one thing, I’ve discovered that how a person comes to God has a great influence on how a person relates to God.  How you are born in great part determines how you will develop.  If you scare people into church, you have to keep scaring them to keep them in church.

This calls for a lot of preaching on hell and the Tribulation.  And when did Christianity become about hell and the Tribulation?  Isn’t it supposed to be about Jesus?

It’s all so confusing….

And then we compound the problem by presenting the gospel as a business proposition.  If we will accept Jesus as Lord (as if our decision makes Him anything) and say the magic prayer…a prayer that didn’t even exist 200 years ago…we will trade our old sinful lives, consisting of failure and filth, for Jesus’ righteousness and eternal bliss.

So who wouldn’t make that deal?  And what does Jesus get out of it?

Thus we enter into what is supposed to be an intimate relationship by way of a business arrangement.  I, for one, do not call business-arrangement intimacy a relationship.  I call it prostitution.

And it gets worse.

Because we married God for His money/stuff, we don’t really care whether He lives or dies.  In fact, He can be a bit of a nuisance.  So we learn…compliments of “teachers” (who don’t know Him any better than we do) to whom we pay big money to deceive us…that faith is the Bible way of getting God’s stuff without having to mess with Him.

Does this sound just a bit sordid to you?  (If not, then try this on your spouse and get back to me on how it works for you.)

And who got the brilliant idea in the first place that preaching the threat of hellfire is the best way to bring people to Jesus?  My Bible says it is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4).

You see, for the longest time I found God easy to resist.  I could resist the fire-breathing tyrant of religion.  I could resist the stern judge.  I could resist the abusive father.  I could resist the celestial scorekeeper.  I could resist a God who would just as soon throw me into hell as look at me.

But I could not resist a God who loved me so much that He would die just to hang out with me.  I could not resist a God who loved me passionately.  I could not resist a God who pursued me relentlessly.  I could not resist a God who refused to change His mind about loving me, no matter what I did.

I have no defense against this kind of love.  Do you?

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com