Church Hurt – How do you help Christians

what Joyce church is such a blessing to us, being able to be in the body together, to have those close relationships to learn about christ to serve. There are so many important things about being in church, there are many people who are watching right now who have also been hurt in that environment and um so oftentimes when that happens then they are afraid to go back or it even changes the way they think about who God is. Well, I’m one of those people, Oh good, that’s a horrible thing to say. It’s not good to change how I felt about God, but I did get really hurt in church and I think that our expectations have a lot to do with it because you get hurt everywhere else, but somehow you think you won’t get hurt by a christian, but the thing that people have to realize is that I heard one time that church is just a hospital for a bunch of dysfunctional people and it’s true, I mean, you know, we’re still people and you still deal with all the same stuff that you deal with, I mean you’re supposed to grow and get to the point where that’s not the case, but you have baby christians and people that aren’t even christians yet and you know, there’s just mature christians who do the wrong thing and mature christians who having a bad day and take it out on you and we we do, i it’s foolish to think anytime, I hope this doesn’t sound negative, but any time that you deal with people, you have a possibility of getting hurt. Yes, that’s why jesus told us to be quick to forgive and ready to forgive over and over and over and over again, and to not be touchy and to not be easily offended. And we have to keep in mind that sometimes people may intend to hurt you, but most of the time it’s not their intention, they’re just dealing with their own stuff and you get in the way of it sure, I had a situation where there was a lot of talk about me in church, in other words, I had made a decision that some other people felt differently about and it wasn’t anything about right or wrong or against the word of God, it was just a decision that people, a small group of people disagreed with. And so it became a much bigger deal than it should have been, and it became a point of hurt for me. Part of my question for you are such a, such a great thing to talk about is how do we deal with something like that? So that I don’t take it to heart so much I let God heal me and that people who are in that situation know how to handle it differently when, when it’s coming their way. Well, I I do think that the first thing is your expectations, you know, just don’t even go into a situation expecting to never be hurt. I mean, like, you can’t get married and expect to never be hurt. You can’t, you can’t get involved in a group of people and expect to never, ever get hurt. But we have to keep in mind that we’ve very possibly maybe hurting other people from time to time. And absolutely, and don’t even realize it. And if you realize that church people are still people got to amplify the people part, you know, they’re there, but there there’s still people and they still, there’s jealousies. There’s, you know, one of the things that, that I got really hurt over was caused by a girl that really in essence wanted my job. I taught the women’s meeting at the church and it was, it was a good size meeting with several 100 people and all this talk started about me and people decided that I was this, that and something else. And it’s amazing the trouble that one or two people can cause, especially if they don’t recognize when satan is putting things in their head and, you know, love is supposed to be Our # one goal. And they weren’t walking in love. They were walking in suspicion. And and I mean, I I got really, really, really hurt. It took me about three years to get over it and talk can do a lot of damage it can. And really, I’ve discovered if somebody comes to me and says something to me about somebody else that’s unkind. Even if I don’t want to believe it. it still affects me. You still have a tendency to wonder or look at the person in a different way. That’s why each of us we really need to take the responsibility. Two not gossiping and not be judgmental. And if you if you think something that’s unkind, take it to God in prayer, don’t take it to somebody else in conversation. Or what does the bible say if your brother offends you go first to him privately, the amplified bible says talk to him about doesn’t say go tell everybody else. And usually we don’t talk to the person we talked to everybody else. So there are certain things that can happen in a church setting. For instance, there are, there are sometimes when a person is um overextended or overworked, asked to do too much and feel like they’re taking advantage of. There are sometimes where authority is abused, um, expectations like you said. So let’s let’s talk about that church hurt and encourage someone who’s been in any of those positions right now, and especially how it does relate to who God is in all of this. Well, first, let’s talk about not being appreciated. It’s a great place to start. You know, let’s just say that you work in the nursery and you’ve been faithful in the nursery for years and years and years and you hear plenty of complaints from moms who don’t like the way you’re taking care of their kids. But how often does somebody come and say, I want you to know, I really appreciate you being in here every week. So we have to make sure that we do what we do under the Lord. You know, these are conscious decisions that we have to make and you can’t just because it’s God’s house, you can’t blame God if you get hurt because although God urges people and encourages them to do the right thing, when they do the wrong thing, that’s not his fault. It’s not something that you you blame him for. And church, you got to think about all the good things. Church is still a great place to be. And as far as being taken advantage of, we all have a tendency to go to the person that we think is going to say yes when we need help, because not everybody is willing to help. But then we have a responsibility instead of getting mad at them because they took advantage of us. It’s really our responsibility to say no. And that’s the big thing. You know, we get into blaming everybody else and you can’t, you know, you don’t want to leave a church because you got hurt. I mean, the same way you leave one is this way you’re gonna enter the next one. And really if you’re gonna go to church, you might as well just figure if you’re gonna get involved with people, that there are times when you’re gonna get hurt. and I remember this was a different situation. I was dealing with trying to learn how to be a submissive wife. I’m probably still working on that. But I’ve been hurt so much by men that I couldn’t even grasp how God could ask me to trust God. I mean to trust Dave and I said, I know I’ll get hurt. And he said, yes, you will. But I’m always here to heal you. And so we, you know, we take those hearts to God and we believe the best of people, I’ll tell you the bible says, Love always believes the best of every person and I have discovered, if you believe the best, it saves you so much heartache and so much trouble. And not only that, I believe that it opens the door, gives God an opportunity to work on that person’s heart. Then if we’re if we’re responding wrong, if we’re getting angry, then we’re preventing God from working in that person’s life. That’s why the bible says to pray. That’s an interesting way to look at for your enemies. And so we can’t expect God to work in a person’s life to change them. If we’re not doing things the way God tells us to do them. So instead of, well, you did this and you did this and you did that. What about me? Am I handling this right? Am I praying? That’s the only one you’re responsible for. Yeah, I can’t I can’t make anybody else behave, right? But I can I can be responsible for myself. And then I think when we do things God’s way, that’s what opens the door when you know, when you pray for somebody who’s hurt you, that’s what opens the door for God to deal with them. I remember telling the Lord one time, I don’t want to pray for me. I don’t want them to be blessed. You know, bless your enemies, pray for them, it says, and I’m just being honest, I don’t want them to be blessed. And I felt like what God taught me out of that was that I’m not gonna give him a new car if you pray for him to be blessed. First thing I’ll give them is some truth about their behavior. God will open people’s eyes to their behavior and what they’re doing if you do things God’s way, let me ask you one more scenario because I think this is so helpful. I think it’s so good. Um, you’ve already talked about the people in the church. They’re just like the people everywhere else. But there is still that thing that we hear so often is church is full of hypocrites. I don’t want to be there because I’ve seen how they are, how how do you combat that type of heart? Well, to be honest, and this is my feeling. I think for most people that’s just an excuse not to be part of it. I mean, I really think that, you know, Well it is hypocrites. Well, where is that? Then go and be a good example and hopefully they’ll see your good example and change. You know, we can’t it’s it really is just an excuse because everybody makes mistakes. We all make mistakes. You know, you you can’t be married to somebody for a lot of years and not Make Mistakes. Dave and I have been married 50, was it 53 or 54? I forget sometimes that b 54 car 54 recently. Yeah. Anyway, long time, remember a long time. You know, it’s a long time and you can’t remember how long it’s been and uh just the other day, he he said, well, you don’t have to be so snotty about it. So I sent him an email later and I signed it. That’s not. And so how many times have you had to forgive tim in the years that you’ve been married? How many times have I had to forgive Dave, But how many has he had to forgive me? Yeah. And not as many, but a lot. Yeah. Right. Not nearly as many, but that’s better than starting all over. You’ll have to forgive that person to that’s a great, so if you get hard in this church and you leave, I mean, unless you just come in and sit in the back pew, come in just right before the worship starts and leave as soon as everything’s over, If you never get involved, then you won’t get hurt, but you’re hurting yourself, you’re robbing the rest of the people of your gifts. And that’s why God wants us to come together, so we share our gifts. And I mean, God puts gifts in me and in you, they’re in there for other people. Like your gift is work to you. Other people benefit from it same way with me, you know, I’m a gifted speaker, but I have to do a lot of work to say what I’m going to get up and say and everybody else just gets to benefit from that. So you don’t want to rob people of your gifts, That’s not that’s not God’s desire. And I really do think we just need we need to not be so touchy, just you know, something happened the other day and somebody did something and I thought I started to think, well, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, and then I thought, you know what, that’s just silly, I’m just going to make myself miserable and I don’t know they intended to do that, I’m just going to believe the best and going about my business. So in closing what word of words of healing would you have for someone who was really hurt in their church environment? Well, you take it to God and to be honest, the first step to healing, I want everybody to get this. The first step to healing is to forgive you. Really cannot. Your soul cannot be healed. Your wounded emotions cannot be healed without forgiving. And secondly, take a look at yourself. You know, we we should not have an attitude of what I would never do that. You know, we we do that, we looked at man, I would never do that. Well, you might not only do that, but you might do something worse because you don’t know what that person is going through and so don’t leave church because you got hurt. Only go if God tells you to go. And so, you know, I got hurt one time in the church and I wanted to leave and the Lord definitely put it on my heart. You don’t leave until I tell you to leave, and he didn’t let me leave until I was no longer angry at anybody, because if you if you take it out the door with you, you’ll take it into the next place that you go and and don’t use that as an excuse. Well, I’m not gonna go to church anymore. I got hurt her. I’m not gonna go to church anymore because they’re all hypocrites. All you need to be concerned about is you you can’t fix everybody else, but you can work with the holy spirit to be the best you that you can be a great encouragement. Thank you very much. You’re welcome, okay