These posts will be be detailing a few different subjects:
A Piece of My Testimony
Why I left My Church
God’s Protection (+ Holy Spirit Led Understanding) During My Time There
I hope I do this story justice because God’s hand has really been over my life.
Just so you know a bit about me: I was raised Christian, but didn’t grow up in church. I’ve always had an active prayer life and have always known God to be a faithful, loving Father. I attended the same church for 10 years – from February 2014 to February 2024.
God has led me out of – and away from – numerous things over the years.
He has led me out of affiliations, relationships (platonic + romantic), certain jobs and, now, two churches. I’ve experienced a lot of manipulative and emotionally abusive situations throughout my life. And, what I realize now, is that there is a commonality in almost everything that God has delivered me from. In all of these things, there existed some level of deception; whether blatant or subtle.
If you have never fallen victim to manipulation, then please thank God as He has blessed you with – and protected you via – a healthy level of emotional discernment.
Still, I’ve learned that deception is much more insidious than most of us could ever imagine. You either have to be incredibly familiar with the truth – or you have to know exactly what you’re looking for – in order to even recognize it as deception. Then, depending on how far deep you’re in, you have to accept that the thing you trusted is capable of doling out that level of deceit.
I truly believe that God has used every situation to build in me an understanding of: 1) manipulation and 2) the people who fall for it.
Because so many people fail to look deeper into the mechanics of manipulation, they end up with a harsh judgment of people who “fall for” and “remain in” these dynamics.
But, because God has brought me out of my situations – and because He has both revealed and healed – I have a level of insight and compassion that I’m able to now bring to the conversation.
A PIECE OF MY TESTIMONY:
In 2023, I was concerned about something major that was happening within my family; something which impacted me directly. At a point, I simply had to acknowledge that I was lost in knowing how to proceed. Every door was being slammed in my face and none of my efforts were producing.
And I was in constant prayer.
See, it wasn’t as if I were leaving God out of the equation. I was in communication with Him. But, ultimately, I was still doing what I knew to do. (Fun fact: A very common teaching in my former church is, “When you don’t know what to do, do the last thing God told you to do.”)
I was scared, nervous and mentally exhausted. Eventually, I found that I had “nothing left to do” but to give it to God. I thought I’d already done so, but little did I know…
Honestly, I am grateful that He allowed me to exhaust all my attempts at figuring things out on my own. It gave me the conviction and confirmation that the things that would happen to and for me – from that point forward – were of His doing. Nothing could be credited back to me. None of my strategies worked. None of my overthinking worked. I had to fall unto Him.
The first thing He showed me is that I only understood my battle from a surface-level, fleshly perspective. He showed me that everything ultimately boils down to a battle for the soul. When it came to my dilemma – that greatly applied to the soul of my family member.
He brought me back to Ephesians 6:12 (“We battle not against flesh and blood…”). He changed my focus, and thus changed my prayer. My petition became deeper.
He kept urging me to study the meaning of “Repentance” – which, in short, means to “turn from sin” (or, better stated: “a change of mind/will toward God”). I’d been in church faithfully for 9.5 years, at that point, and had never truly known the meaning. That’s not to say that my pastor didn’t use the word. It’s to say that, the few times he elaborated on its meaning, the explanation was incorrect. And, you don’t know what you don’t know.
So, in learning about repentance, I was moved to really confess a lot of my sinful behavior to God. Even those things which were no longer part of my life.
God had me sit in those lessons for a while: Repentance and the notion that everything is a spiritual battle.
•••
He then led me on a journey of obedience. For my specific situation, He showed me that I needed to stop seeking advice at-large. He revealed the people in my life who understood what I was going through on a worldly level and who were aligned with me spiritually, so that we could encourage each other within the faith. So, it was a lesson on discernment and discretion.
For this particular situation, He put in my heart that I was not to give my testimony in detail because I’d be tempted to take credit. That, my deliverance would be His doing and His alone. Lo and behold, anytime I’d go to share bits and pieces, I’d always find myself gloating! Or, I’d receive pushback and unnecessary opposition which would lead to anger and frustration. It was so difficult to practice discretion for this situation. But I learned that it was truly for my protection.
•••
Then He allowed a desire to form in me. In the midst of my former church’s sermon about Abraham, God allowed the passage about righteousness to strike me so hard. I was so enamored that God found Abraham to be righteous and that he had an unprecedented protection because of it. It was a covering I knew I needed. I kept praying that God would see me as righteous. (Yes, my understanding of righteousness was nonexistent at this point.)
•••
God brought me to a lesson on forgiveness – which simultaneously got in my spirit and will always require refreshing on my part. This was a very long, difficult and healing block of time for me. He tied this lesson back into Ephesians 6:12, and showed me that confronting or addressing the issue (mentally or verbally) and forgiving (spiritually) go hand in hand.
Once you confront something within yourself and you accept it for what it is – sinful, harmful, hurtful, etc. – you can start to determine how to navigate it. If you know that something or someone is harming you – in any way – that dynamic cannot continue as is.
Forgiveness isn’t acceptance of harmful behavior. It’s a spiritual release which signals to God that you realize this battle is not yours. It keeps you from taking matters into your own hands and sinning. And it acknowledges that just as God has forgiven you, through Christ – releasing you from bondage – you are also willing to exercise grace. (Again: It is not acceptance of harmful behavior and it does not mean that you have to maintain affiliation with the person or thing.)
•••
As I was still working on understanding and figuring out how to practice forgiveness, God revealed to me the level in which I’d been failing to operate in the authority He’s given me. There are things that God has placed in our jurisdiction to steward: our households, our finances, our children, etc.
For those of us who are in Christ, seeking God’s presence, will, and instruction… For those who remain dedicated to searching Scripture for deeper understanding… there should, then, be a level of trust that God is guiding your household.
Unfortunately, I’d been allowing many different people to cause me to second guess everything about the way I operated. And, when people use manipulation for an extended period of time to chip away at your autonomy, it breeds uncertainty and confusion.
When God showed me the ways in which I needed to start standing in truth, it was mind-blowing. He led me to mature, and… I did. And it happened fast.
January 2024 felt like a wonderful high for me in so many ways. I felt so stable and excited about life – regarding both the scary things and the good things. I just felt a bit overwhelmed about all that I still needed to work on, like: forgiveness, discretion, and doing away with certain behaviors and attitudes.
But, even the overwhelm felt like a welcomed challenge.
It was at this point that I started asking God to teach me about “self-righteousness” because I was so afraid of becoming prideful. I knew what God had done for me and I knew that He wanted the glory. So, I didn’t want to become self-righteous and negate all the work He’d done in me.
And this is when stuff got interesting…
Lexzie in Christ 