Search Results

Diagnosis Doubts Imagination or Alters (Insiders)? New Introduction I was recently informed that this is one of my most visited webpage about Dissociative Identity Disorder (the condition formerly known as multiple personalities). That alarmed me because I consider this as one of my least valuable pages. What is so much more important than formal diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder is actually discovering one’s parts (also known as alters or personalities). For help with this, I recommend How to find every alter and get them to communicate with you. This – not answers to a questionnaire (no matter how sophisticated) – is the foundation of healing. I can certainly understand an infatuation with diagnosis , however. At the very heart of Dissociative Identity Disorder is keeping hidden from oneself alarming and significant information. One becomes so skilled at hiding it that if any hint is revealed (including the existence of one’s alters) it typically seems unbelievable to the person. Dissociative Identity Disorder begins in childhood, in situations when living in denial is the only coping option available. (Just thinking of how tragic this is, brings tears to my eyes, even though I myself do not have D.I.D.) Living in denial does indeed bring a degree of short term relief, but this relief causes living in denial to gradually become an involuntary, ingrained habit – one's primary coping mechanism – that extends far into adulthood and to living in denial of having Dissociative Identity Disorder. Moreover, a common aspect of Dissociative Identity Disorder is divorcing feelings from facts. This is a clever way of coping, because one without the other makes the memory seem far less real and upsetting. For example, someone might happen to recall certain ugly facts but if the feelings associated with them are disconnected, it makes it much easier to dismiss the event as mere imagination, or to suppose that if it actually happened, it must not have been particularly traumatic. Likewise, unpleasant feelings without associated facts makes it seen unreal. So anyone in the early stages of coming to terms with the reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder, will inevitably be plagued with doubts about whether any of it is real, and hence the desire to keep seeking abundant confirmation. Because it is a common reason for some people presuming they must not have Dissociative Identity Disorder, I should point out from the beginning that only some people with Dissociative Identity Disorder ‘lose time’ – i.e. occasionally lose awareness of what they are doing, and when they next become aware of their circumstances they have no memory of what occurred. For some of those that rarely, if ever, have such bouts, it is as if they are usually in the driver’s seat, able to control what they do. In the rest of this section I’ll adapt a quote from another of my webpages. If you have already read it, feel free to slide down to the next section. It can remove so much confusion, however, that I think it’s worth quoting here for those who have not yet read it. If you have D.I.D., you are, obviously, an important part of a person but, regardless of whether you are aware of it, there are other parts (alters) as well. You might almost always have one level of awareness, but there are other possibilities that you might sometimes experience. Other alters can also move from one level to another. Since such changes can be bewildering, let me list the possibilities. 1. You are fully in control of the body and are uninfluenced by any other alter . If you have D.I.D., things could suddenly change, but if, other than when the body is sleeping, you almost always have this level of consciousness (and especially if other alters rarely, if ever, take over the body when you sleep), you will find it difficult to believe you have D.I.D. Even if you are aware of other alters or of having symptoms associated with D.I.D., you might have an alter who has no such awareness and is often in charge of the body. If that alter were the only one to interact with a therapist, or the one who completed a D.I.D. test, it is unlikely that even a skilled therapist would detect D.I.D. This can make diagnosis problematical , particularly so, because the part most often in control is the one more likely to appear when seeing a therapist, and this part is usually deliberately kept in the dark by other alters. It is typical of alters to see it as their duty to conceal from this part awareness of D.I.D. symptoms so that this part can present to the public an appearance of normality. This, they believe – and too often they are right – will protect them from undesirable things, such as ridicule. 2. You are fully in control of the body but are being fed information and/or skills and/or feelings by one or more other alters. You might realize that other alters are contributing, or you might presume that it is all your own doing. If you are in the latter situation, you might be puzzled as to why your feelings sometimes do not match your circumstances. You might also have become so accustomed to being fed a particular ability that you are shocked when you suddenly lose that ability when that alter sleeps or goes deeper inside. All that you might know about it is that you no longer have that ability. A common reason for an alter suddenly withdrawing is that something frightens the alter (it might not be upsetting to you ) because what happened bears superficial similarities to something unpleasant that the alter experienced years ago. Usually, the alter does not remain in hiding for very long, but it can be very disconcerting when it happens, and you can be left floundering without that alters knowledge and/or skills. 3. You retain awareness of the outside world and of what is happening to your body, but you have no control over the body because another alter has exclusive control over it. In this case, you will be acutely conscious that something unusual is happening. 4. You have lost any awareness of the outside world, and may or may not have any awareness of alters in the inside world. It is tempting to define either healing, or never having D.I.D., as being at level 1, where you have other alters but they do not manifest themselves. That’s like sitting on a time-bomb, however. Things could change in a heartbeat. Surprisingly, those who are almost always aware of what is happening, even when its source actually another alter – mood swings, times when their knowledge and skillset varies, doing things they don’t want to do, etc. – are often jealous of those who ‘lose time,’ because that would make their dissociation more dramatic and it might make it easier for them to believe they have Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is a case of the grass in someone else’s field seeming greener, however, because for those with Dissociative Identity Disorder who regularly ‘lose time,’ becoming aware of what other alters are doing is actually a significant step forward in their healing. An almost inevitable reason for people doubting they have Dissociative Identity Disorder is that, having been scared off by horror stories that are typically fictitious, they fear the consequences of having it. Denial never changes things, however. If you have D.I.D., you have survived having had it since childhood, and there are many advantages of finally acknowledging it. If you were to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, it would mean that parts of you are hurting more than you realize and that they will never heal without you accepting their existence. Unless you acknowledge them, parts of you will forever reel in needless inner pain, confusion, guilt, fear and ignorance, and neglecting them will forever hold you back from the joy, peace, fulfilment and all sorts of achievements that would otherwise be yours. Moreover, to have D.I.D. means that you are far more capable and have much greater intellectual, social and spiritual potential, plus greater ability to help people, than you currently realize. And it means you will never reach your remarkable potential unless you admit to yourself that you have Dissociative Identity Disorder. What you suffered when you were young, crushed your self-esteem, causing you to underestimate how capable and valuable you are. Your full potential, however, extends so far beyond your expectations that it cannot be explained merely in terms of low self-esteem. If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, and have not yet healed, you have access to only part of your brain. You have done remarkably well with what is available to you but until you acknowledge other parts of you, they have exclusive access to other parts of your brain that have developed independently. These parts of you have not just additional memories but additional talents, abilities and intellectual capacity. This makes discovering that you have Dissociative Identity Disorder such good news that I am envious of everyone making this discovery. For just a glimpse of why I feel envious, see Your Amazing Potential if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder . As in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-28), our Creator longs for us to achieve the highest we are capable of and not be like the unfaithful servant, who caved in to fear (Matthew 25:25), rather than develop what had been entrusted to him. If there is the slightest possibility that you might have Dissociative Identity Disorder, you owe it not only to yourself but to God, to those who love you and to all those you could help if you reached your full potential, to discover whether you really have D.I.D. and, if you do, to heal so that you have full access to all your abilities and the strength – to say nothing of peace and fulfilment – that flows from it. Healing necessitates a fierce determination to discover the truth and to keep holding on to that truth. “Seek and you will find,” declared Jesus (Matthew 7:7). There are no promises to those who do not seek. Christ asked a key question of a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. “Do you want to be made whole?” (John 5:6). Jesus zeroed in on this often-overlooked question, even though the man was deliberately lying in the very area where people hoping for healing miracles congregated (John 5:2-7). People can seem desperate for healing and yet in their heart of hearts be less motivated to heal than we would expect. Was the man now so comfortable with his limitations that he was unwilling to embrace the changes to his lifestyle that healing would cause? If he were to be healed, for example, he could no longer beg for a living. He would have to find a job. Jesus had to warn those who wanted to follow him that they must be willing to pay the price (Luke 9:57-62; 14:26-33). Healing usually requires a stubborn commitment to keep embracing whatever temporary challenges it costs to keep pressing forward on the healing journey, and this is particularly the case with Dissociative Identity Disorder. We will later touch on indicators that one might have Dissociative Identity Disorder but for now, we should focus on what makes the diagnosis so hard to believe and accept. Dissociative Identity Disorder is the product of one’s mind trying to reduce the overwhelming stress of a traumatic childhood by keeping parts of you ignorant about the full extent of what you have suffered. This means that if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, no part of you knows your full story until you have completed the long process of fully healing. Moreover, if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, the part of you that interacts most with the real world – handling everyday matters like employment, finances and social interaction – is particularly “protected” from awareness of past or present trauma. This is no coincidence; it is a deliberate strategy of the mind to free up this important part of you from such debilitating distractions as fear, defeatism and overwhelming emotional pain, so that you can do what is needed to function in the real world. It is the hidden parts of a person who are more likely to have obvious problems. They bear most of the inner pain and distress, are less aware of current reality, act in a way less consistent with one’s physical age, and so on. The part who is most often present – sometimes called the host – is the one for whom life seems the most normal and, by being kept unaware of past and/or present trauma, is kept unaware of the alters who bear that trauma. So the part who is most often in charge can be expected to find it especially hard to believe that he/she has Dissociative Identity Disorder. A friend of mine completed a simple questionnaire to test for Dissociative Identity Disorder. Her score indicated she had D.I.D. She re-did the test later and her score was so different that it suggested she did not have D.I.D. If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, this is just the confusing thing you would expect, because at different times a different mix of alters is likely to be out and so there will be a different degree of awareness of issues you face and how you behave. Consequently, even while striving to be totally honest, you might answer the same questions differently on various occasions. So even if you only sometimes think you might have D.I.D., that in itself is a significant clue that you could indeed have Dissociative Identity Disorder. Until alters feel comfortable with revealing themselves to you and you feel comfortable about hearing from them, your very lack of awareness of your alters will, of necessity, make it seem to you as if you do not have Dissociative Identity Disorder. We have seen that in seeking to present to the world an image of normality – and so protect the person from ridicule, or worse – alters have a vested interest in keeping their hosts ignorant of anything about them that might suggest Dissociative Identity Disorder. There is yet another complication, however: even alters who are desperate to unburden themselves and tell the host the truth, are often too scared to do so. The most common reasons are: 1. their abuser threatened awful things would happen if ever they told 2. another alter thinks it unwise to tell the host and silences the alter 3. or the alter tried in the past to speak and was deeply hurt by the host’s refusal to believe the alter. It is common to be so unaware of alters as to unknowingly have a history of suppressing alters and/or belittling them and/or betraying their confidence. This would make them understandably reluctant to reveal themselves to you. Another possible reason for their reluctance could be that they think that by keeping you in the dark they are sparing you from stress. Such reasons can cause them to be more open in talking to certain other people than to you. They are much more likely to communicate with you once they gain confidence that you will accept them and be kind to them and will not betray them by blabbing to anyone else what they tell you in confidence. (You are likely to later be able to help them feel safe about you telling some trustworthy person but do not do so without their permission.) They also need to believe that you will not freak out or refuse to believe them if they tell you things about your past that you are currently unaware of and seem inconsistent with your current perception of your past. The best way to help them trust you is for you to reassure them that you have changed your attitude toward them. At first, you are likely to have little way of knowing when they are able to hear you. So it is best to speak out loud on several different occasions on the off-chance that they might be able to hear you; giving them the assurances they need. We have established that alters are often intent on keeping their host from realizing they have D.I.D. and/or refuse to communicate with their hosts. This would be serious enough if it were the only internal factor acting in the early stages of the healing against accepting a Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis but there is another powerful force driving a people to reject an accurate D.I.D. diagnosis: hosts themselves are strongly biased to keep pushing from their consciousness any awareness of anything that might suggest Dissociative Identity Disorder. From childhood, pushing unpleasant truths from their minds has been their primary way of coping with a life that has been so extreme that their very survival is remarkable. That makes dismissing unwanted truths from one’s mind both a deeply entrenched habit and a fundamental aspect of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Once refusing to accept unwanted truths becomes an ingrained habit, however, it continues long after it ceased to be an appropriate coping strategy. So if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, then by trying to live in denial of having it, you are merely continuing to employ your time-worn means of coping. To heal, however, you will need to break that habit, which can seem as scary for you as a heroin addict trying to survive without drugs. As a desperate child, you could do little else but push from your mind the truth about the hopelessness of your predicament. You are no longer a child, however, and your maturity means your situation is no longer hopeless. You must now make up for lost time by forcing yourself to face reality full-on, so that you can end the nightmare that living in denial perpetuates. If you kept spending more money than you earned, every day that you refused to face the need to budget, the more serious the financial crisis would become. If you were lost and heading in the wrong direction, to push on as if everything were okay would keep taking you further and further from safety. If your car began making an unusual noise, ignoring it could turn a minor repair into a needlessly expensive, inconvenient, and even dangerous, experience. I could keep piling on example after example, but surely there is no need to risk boring you by drawing from the well of countless more examples. The stark fact of life is that living in denial is the highway to disaster. If understanding the problem is essential to finding the solution, then refusing to acknowledge the problem perpetuates the problem. If the truth sets us free, then keeping ourselves ignorant keeps us imprisoned in a self-imposed dungeon of despair. As enticing as it seems, living in denial ruins our lives by perpetuating the problem and, almost invariably, intensifying it. Moreover, living in denial is contrary to the God of truth who loves you so passionately that he longs not to dominate you but for you to co-operate with him in saving you from your dilemma. For more on this, see The Danger of Living in Denial: When is Positive Confession Living in Denial? Writes a friend of mine: I am in complete denial that I have Dissociative Identity Disorder – until I hear my alters! Then the reality comes and I am sickened, terrified and overwhelmed. I could no longer pretend when I received my therapist’s diagnosis. Before then, I hid every piece of evidence I could. I burned writings that I found placed in my journal. I tried ripping them up and throwing them in the trash but not even that was enough. Just knowing they were torn up in the trash scared me. So I burned them, hoping that the ashes would disappear, along with my actions of having ever written them. I had been labeled so many things as a child and I was determined that this label was not going to be me – whoever me was. I knew I struggled with my identity but to be diagnosed with D.I.D. was like death to me. It spun me to the ground. The more I ignored it, the less control I felt and the more in control I felt I needed to be. So I controlled the only thing I knew . . . food. I refused to eat and so did my parts. I wanted to wither away like the ashes. I wanted to disappear into nobody. I had heard voices all my life. That was normal for me. I accepted it and lived with it. The diagnosis was just another thing to hide. Yet the reality is, I have D.I.D. The day I finally wrote down the names of my alters and looked at the list, and stared at their ages and could not erase them from my mind was when I somewhat accepted this reality. Do I still have doubts? Yes! When I’m through with a session with my therapist and she asks me if I want to know who she spoke with, I say, “No, that’s okay . . .” I walk away knowing something went on in the office. I feel the effects of it but choose to deny the facts. Leesa (All quotes are given by the permission of the authors, using whatever name they preferred to provide. Quotes are sometimes slightly touched up to improve readability.) Since living in denial is the basic cause of D.I.D., it is hardly surprising that healing hinges on a radical change of mindset. One must fight the strong temptation to keep running from unpleasant truths. People can fear a cancer diagnosis so much that they keep putting off getting a lump checked by a doctor. These days, however, the greatest danger is delaying treatment. One’s fear of cancer can end up turning an easily treatable condition into something that is genuinely scary. So it is with Dissociative Identity Disorder: what is scary is not a D.I.D. diagnosis, but continuing through life without realizing that one has D.I.D. Once one accepts the truth, one can take precautions to make one’s life safer and begin to heal. Every moment’s delay prolongs one’s discomfort and wastes one’s enormous potential. Almost all my life, I have been plagued by an undiagnosed chronic-fatigue-like ailment that has greatly restricted me. I have ached for a diagnosis because it would explain why I have been this way. In addition, I might at last get some treatment that would improve my quality of life. Likewise, if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, the diagnosis will eventually bring great relief by finally explaining many things about yourself that have always puzzled you. For many examples of this, see The Amazing Advantages of Acknowledging you have Dissociative Identity Disorder . In addition to explaining things about yourself that have always puzzled you, accepting a correct diagnosis will finally allow you to heal. And the healing it offers does not even require medication, so there will be no side effects. Some friends share their experiences: I once suddenly felt very dizzy and needed to sit on the floor of my hallway. Then I heard in my head “Where am I? What is this place?” Compared to the stress I was going through at the time, this experience, although surprising and strange, made me feel diverted and removed from the pain I had been experiencing. I thought it was real in a way, but I also thought I was playacting or being melodramatic. Even with the dizziness and the voice inside my head, it still felt so mild – like just an acting out of extreme stress, as a hypochondriac might do. I thought, “I’m just having younger times of my life dredged up because of all this stress. It’s just taking this dramatic form of D.I.D., because I would find that more exciting and diversionary than cold hard reality.” I thought I was escaping reality by fantasizing having D.I.D., in order to be pleasantly distracted. (Boy does that sound crazy!) But it did just seem to come out of the blue; not as if I had planned it. Although unexpected, it brought tremendous mental relief and I liked talking with those parts inside my head. It felt like coming home, and something that was doable, in contrast to everything else at the time that was causing me to feel so isolated from myself and having no relief. Alison After asking me a lot of questions, someone told me I might have Dissociative Identity Disorder. I was in shock! I had previously heard a little about D.I.D. and used to think, “I’m glad that’s not me.” I would have never thought I had D.I.D. After all, I thought I had a pretty normal childhood. Um. I guess not. It took me a couple of months of sessions with counsellors to really accept it. When I saw things happening and parts coming forward that were verified, I knew it must be real. Knowing it was real was actually more calming than not knowing. At last I had a name for what was happening. At first, it is upsetting and overwhelming to hear the words Dissociative Identity Disorder, but after a while, it’s confirming. To know one has Dissociative Identity Disorder is stressful, but then to get confirmation, is relieving. At least you know how to pursue healing. This isn’t a diagnosis or an answer that one initially wants to hear. It takes a while to accept, but if it’s affirmed, I have found it can be very helpful. Noel When I first heard about Dissociative Identity Disorder (back then it was called Multiple Personality Disorder – M.P.D.) I thought nothing of it. In my understanding, I did not have the condition. Yet others kept pointing out alters that would communicate with them. Church members would make small comments about my personalities and moods or behaviors that would change. Despite people’s comments, however, I was continually in denial of it because I was unaware of my parts. The more I wanted to avoid the diagnosis, however, the more that people seemed to point out usual things I would do at very inappropriate times. It was very overwhelming and even a shock to me when I did a short test for D.I.D. and discovered I had marked over half of the checks on the list. I wished and wished the test was inaccurate or that maybe if I didn’t say anything to anyone else and I put up my guard, then other people might not make any more remarks. I was mistaken, and my little alters got hurt as well as myself. I think the only way I came to this place of acceptance was the Lord himself, as he brought people along my path that were familiar with Dissociative Identity Disorder. It helps to have others encourage you. When a therapist told me, “You have Dissociative Identity Disorder and we want to get you the proper help.” I was terrified. All kinds of questions ran through my head, “Will I be okay? What is wrong? Am I crazy or something?” I was frightened to know the real truth and to accept it, so it was easier for me to doubt it. God seemed to help me greatly through this struggle as he tenderly reminded me how much he loved my little ones. I shied away from it. I couldn’t figure God out, either, because I was not aware of my little alters. But one day, it dawned on me that perhaps the therapist and God were right and I needed to take a closer look. I was relieved to discover that D.I.D. is more common than I had assumed and that I wasn’t crazy but that, due to all the abuse and trauma I had endured through multiple abuses, I now had a gift of protective, highly talented alters who had held my pain for me so that I did not have to when I had been abused as a child. I had to learn to accept this but it took some time, patience and God loving me and my little alters through it all. I slowly came to grips with the fact that this was not too big for God and that he could restore us. This is what began to break down the denial. It turns out that I do not regret coming to grips with the condition. Lynn The frightening dilemma is that closing one’s mind to unpleasant truths, and so continually worsening things, becomes an ingrained habit – an unthinking reaction. So when someone presumes that a Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis is unpleasant, the time-worn method of denial and perpetuating the problem is seized. This tendency must be fought with everything you have. Every moment of your future hinges on you breaking this habit and facing reality. In reality, a Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis seems scary only when a person is unsure of the implications. Few people understand D.I.D., and most have wild ideas about it, but any normal person who truly understands would be excited to be diagnosed with D.I.D. It means wonderful things are ahead. It opens amazing opportunities for personal development and advancement. It paves the way to peace, wholeness and fulfilment. If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, you have already survived the worse of it. Your very openness to the possibility of having D.I.D. means that life should now begin to get better than you have ever known (unless you were to complicate things by again living in denial of D.I.D.). Don’t waste your life. Don’t let bad people win. You had no choice when you were little. Back then, they were so much stronger than you and their lies seemed so believable. Today, however, you are no longer a child; no longer helpless and easily duped. Those days are gone forever. I have explained in Learned Helplessness: Why Bad Things Keep Happening to Some People how scientific experiments have confirmed the effect of a history of repeatedly being so overpowered that it is impossible to break free. It saps from us the drive needed to escape, even when we grow stronger and gaining freedom becomes easy. Being defeated in what is now the distant past has made you so used to being overpowered and having your hopes crushed that, now that it is easy, you do not want to even try to walk free. The prison door has been wide open for years but whether you walk out into the sunshine and truly enjoy life, or remain languishing in the dingy world of needless despondency and restrictions, is entirely your choice. Stop frittering your life away in unnecessary inner pain, despair and defeatism. Lift up your eyes and let God inspire you. The Almighty believes in you. Keep asking him for his passion for truth, victory, healing and wholeness. Like the ancient Israelites, it is up to you whether you keep wandering in the wilderness or enter the Promised Land divinely prepared for you. It takes courage to enter into all of the blessings and fulfilment and achievements God longs to lavish upon you. As with the Israelites, it is simply a matter of faith – believing that because God is on your side you can do it. You don’t even have to believe in yourself. Simply believe that God is not so pathetically weak that your weakness could ever negate his power. Fear feels so oppressively real but it is just a feeling; not reality. Take God’s hand and walk through the open door. Yet another hindrance to accepting a D.I.D. diagnosis is that you cannot expect your experience to exactly match that of other people who have Dissociative Identity Disorder. Writes another friend of mine: At times I don’t feel I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, even though several therapists see it. It’s not that I want to deny it but it’s that, unlike some people, I don’t wake up to find I’ve done something I wasn’t aware of or I find writings I don’t recognize. There are times, however, when I don’t remember doing things with my husband that he insists I did; but I tend to chalk it up simply to being forgetful. My “forgetfulness” doesn’t happen often – maybe once a week, with some weeks having no “forgetfulness” and other weeks having more. What I do know, however, is when I acknowledge what I feel inside and act accordingly, I find so much more peace inside. Like any family unit, there will be rough times too. Imagine having a fractured leg. There are varying degrees. There is a crushing injury, a compound fracture, a simple fracture, or a hairline fracture. They are all fractures that need to be treated back to health. We all need healing regardless of how bad the injury. Angie For possible indicators of D.I.D., here’s a quote from one of my main webpages about D.I.D., Powerful Answers & Surprising Help for People Traumatized as Children : How Can You Know if You Have an Alter? Should you have alters, becoming aware of this fact is unlikely to be easy. After all, they formed to keep things from you. Moreover, needless fears and misconceptions about the implications of having alters cause most people’s minds to recoil from the thought of having alters. The result is high psychological pressure for people with alters to remain unaware of their alters. So despite all the healing advantages of finding that you have alters, things are stacked against you discovering them. Winning the trust of a terrified jackrabbit might be less of a challenge, but the only sure way to discover alters is to so win their confidence that they decide to talk to you regularly. Until alters feel safe to do this, you can only look for vague clues. Should you have alters, do not expect to have any awareness of, at best, more than a few of the symptoms mentioned below. Although some people with alters have obvious gaps in their memory of the distant past, there are some who, even before healing begins, have a more detailed and complete memory of their childhood than average people who have never had alters. This is because alters do not necessarily retain sole memory of certain events. What they keep to themselves (until they begin to heal) is the deepest emotional reaction to certain traumatic events. Rather than mere facts, it is particularly emotional ownership of these events that they keep from the rest of the person. So people with undetected alters might not necessarily have missing years. They might, however, have the occasional missing moment in everyday life that cannot be attributed to alcohol or drugs. They might, for instance, lose keys or other personal items and find them in places where they cannot recall putting them. Other possibilities include goods appearing that they cannot recall purchasing, inexplicable bank account withdrawals, finding themselves somewhere with no recollection of how they got there, or having no memory of doing things in the recent past that other people claim to have witnessed them doing. Sometimes people with alters discover that they can protect themselves from self-harm or other unwanted behavior by hiding   from themselves knives, credit cards or whatever. They know where they placed the objects, and yet putting them in an unusual place works when an alter does not observe the hiding. If you have sole access to your computer, check History on your Internet Browser to see if you have visited websites you cannot recall having seen. If you retain electronic copies of sent emails, check them to see if you recognize them all. An itemized phone bill, credit card account, or anything else tracking your actions might also be revealing. Of course, we all have memory lapses but with alters, lapses are usually more pronounced than for most people. Some people have even feared Alzheimer’s, when their lapses were simply due to a suppressed part of the person taking over for a while and doing and thinking things that it keeps hidden from the rest of the person. It is tragically common for people with alters to be called liars when their denials are simply because they genuinely don’t remember certain things. Until healing progresses, alters are particularly active when the rest of the person is asleep. You could wake up to find things moved. It might just be sleepwalking but it could be more. I provide e-mail support for abuse survivors. With several different survivors I have suddenly received an e-mail that seems out of character for that person. Besides the subject matter seeming unusual, the grammar and spelling is often more childlike than their usual standard. Sometimes I initially thought that maybe the person wrote the e-mail while under the influence of drugs or alcohol but often it turns out that it is the child part of them temporarily taking over. When I send a copy of the e-mail to the person, he or she is often shocked, having no recollection of having ever written it. Had the correspondence been handwritten, most likely there would be a noticeable change in handwriting. So another clue to the presence of alters is changes in handwriting in, for example, one’s journal. In fact, keeping a journal is a good idea, especially doing so at different times of the day (different times and situations are more likely to reveal different alters). You might be surprised what you find later when re-reading your journal. Some adult survivors sometimes find themselves acting in a childlike way. They might, for example, have a collection of children’s toys. Again, to some extent, we all have times when we act a little childlike, but when it is more pronounced, it could be the inner child temporarily making he/she presence felt. Another possible indicator of an alter is sometimes having certain abilities and sometimes not. You might, for example, have created artwork or poems of a standard far beyond what you think yourself capable of. Or you might be mystified as to why you are occasionally unable to do something – perhaps to spell or read music or some other skill – that at other times you can easily do. Since she was seven, a friend of mine was hopeless at mathematics and yet she kept getting high marks in the subject. She could ace a test, go home and find herself quite unable to solve simple math problems. At college she elected to complete the same algebra course with the same teacher not once, not twice but three times because, despite continually getting high grades, she didn’t have a clue about the subject. Determined not to let it beat her, she even tried to do the course a fourth time, but her teacher forbade her on the grounds that she was too good at the subject to keep repeating it. It was not until she was in her late thirties that she discovered an alter of hers, formed at age seven, who not only specialized in mathematics but who, out of fear of being pushed aside by other parts of the person, deliberately kept the rest of the person mathematically ignorant. Another possible clue is having extended times in which one feels unreal, as if in a dream or not really there. Some describe it as like observing everything from behind a glass wall. It is known as co-consciousness. Another possibility, is sometimes thinking of oneself as “we” or “us,” or feeling as if there is another person inside of you. Hearing voices that seem to come from inside you is yet another possibility. What these voices say could seem a little strange – as might be expected from someone who has suffered bizarre and terrifying abuse – but, in contrast to people with certain other conditions, the voices are relatively rational and sane. Another clue is occasionally having two conflicting emotions; perhaps, for example, feeling happy and yet deep inside feeling sad and trapped. All of the above are common symptoms of what therapists call Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.). Not everyone has every symptom and any supposed symptoms should only be regarded as clues, not diagnostic proof. For example, an embarrassed woman confided to a friend of mine that she kept losing her keys. “What is emotionally upsetting you?” asked my discerning friend. The problem turned out not to be D.I.D., nor Alzheimer’s, but simply a reaction to stress. There are questionnaire-type psychological tests designed to diagnose D.I.D. They can only be administered by professionals and are expensive. See Psychological Tests to Diagnose Dissociative Identity Disorder. Regardless of whether you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, a valuable help in inner healing is to keep a journal in which you record dreams, flashes of memory, feelings, guesses as to what might be distressing you, and so on. Prayerfully doing this over quite a while is likely to clarify things for you and help you better discern what is troubling you. Keep pushing forward with treating yourself as if you had D.I.D. At the very least it should help you get to know yourself better.

Wondrous Peace for the Guilt-Ridden Conscience Purity Restored Not only is the following important for those who cannot forgive themselves, it is also invaluable for Christians who worry that God has not forgiven them of some atrocious sin. So mind-boggling is what I’m about to reveal that it is almost incomprehensible. If you seek God until the truth finally hits you, and then let it sink into your deepest parts, the time will come when it explodes within you. Then you’ll understand why it must surely be the most liberating truth in the universe. No matter how serious your offenses, there is as much hope for you as if your guilt were only imaginary. To grasp the implications let’s, for three paragraphs, explore false guilt. A constant stream of people contact me because they are burdened with guilt over “sins” they have not even committed. Some feel needless guilt over having been seduced when they were too young to understand, or because they were forced when older. Others feel guilty simply because they suffer horrific temptation or evil thoughts that originate not from them but from the Tempter. It is painfully hard for such people to realize that they are innocent of the things that torment them. When – often after torturous years of condemnation – it finally hits them that they were not at fault, their relief is indescribable.  Nevertheless, the truth is far more thrilling than even they realize. On the other hand, there are innocent people who  want  to believe they are guilty. They may not be conscious of it, but these people think themselves stuck in an horrendous no-win situation: to blame themselves for a tragedy they had no control over is torturous, and yet to not blame themselves seems even worse. To admit to themselves that awful things can befall them that they cannot prevent, forces upon them the terrifying conclusion that a tragedy as bad, or even worse, as what they suffered before could (theoretically) happen again. Nevertheless, even if people want to cling to the belief that their sin caused the tragedy, they can still find enormous relief by reading the following, since it explains how Christ totally absolves them of all past sin, regardless of how much they had been responsible. By taking all guilt and blame upon himself, Christ frees us all to let ourselves feel as guiltless as we would if we had been totally innocent, even if we had been totally in the wrong. The basis of God’s love for any of us is  not  that what happened to us was not our fault or that our sins are excusable. God love is not based on what you have or haven’t done. He loves you because he loves you. You are loved so much that even if every wicked thing touching you had been your doing, God still longs to make you the purest of virgins, the most innocent of innocents, in his eyes. It is easy for the Omnipotent Lord, for whom nothing is impossible, to transform you, making you radiant with holy perfection and unsurpassable purity, honored and admired throughout the universes for your uniqueness and breathtaking magnificence. Carefully think about that sentence. Can the God of infinite ability really do that for you? This is no idle dream. The Lord of all has not just power beyond our wildest dreams, but equally incomprehensible love. That means the Almighty not only has all it takes to make you unimaginably glorious, he has an almost overwhelming yearning to do it for you. He is a sculptor who delights in displaying his skill by taking hunks of rock everyone else has dismissed as useless, and turning them into exquisite works of art. You are his jewel, his treasure, his joy, and when he finally completes his masterpiece the entire universe will see what he has always seen in you, and gasp in awe. In Christ, you are unique, irreplaceable, the perfection of divine artistry. You make God proud. In you, God’s glory is displayed for all eternity. All that is needed is to admit to yourself and to God that – along with everyone on this planet – you need Jesus’ cleansing. Then, like a bride decked in an exquisite, literally out-of-this-world gown, you are adorned with the flawless perfection of the Lord Jesus, irrespective of how good or unpleasant your past. Regardless of whether you think yourself forgivable, the holy Lord sees you as forgivable. The Judge of all humanity sees you as worthy of forgiveness because Jesus, the Innocent One, willingly took all the blame upon himself for everything involving you – not just awful experiences you recall, but everything that has slipped your mind, right down to the tiniest, mundane moral slips. On the cross, the exalted, holy Lord swapped places with you so that you could be granted the highest honor of having his innocence bestowed on you. The flawless Son of God took upon himself all of your filth down to the very last speck and placed on you all of his purity, making you like a beacon of pure light, irresistibly attractive to the Holy One. On the cross, Jesus cried out that God had forsaken him. As surely as your imperfections drove the Father in revulsion from the Son, so Jesus’ perfection impels the Father to rush to you like a bee to honey. The Almighty’s standards are so exacting that for God to accept even the most saintly of us, would take no greater miracle than accepting the most depraved of us. When it comes to God delighting in any of us, the critical factor could never be what we have done; it must always be what the holy Son of God has done. He has absorbed all your shame in his own being and given you all his glory. 2 Corinthians 5:21  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. The crucified Christ took all of our sins so we might gain all of his sinlessness. He volunteered for God to treat him as the vilest sinner, so that God could treat us as the perfection of holiness. As surely the Eternal Son got what you deserve, you will get what the Eternal Son deserves. Our Past Doesn’t Matter? Our most common misunderstanding about interacting with God is to suppose that the Exalted One’s feelings for us are based on how good we have been. In reality, our past behavior has no bearing on how God treats us. The King of kings accepts people not because of the smallness of their sins but because of the greatness of Christ’s sacrifice. Christ suffered so that our failures could be wiped out in a flash. All that matters is that we complete God’s joy by letting him do this. At indescribable cost to himself, our Lord has made it so easy for us that we stumble over it seeming too good to be true. But God  is  good! We keep wondering if we are dreaming because our version of reality is the nightmare of living with humans, all of whom are defiled by selfish, impure motives and treat each other accordingly. The Almighty is mind-bogglingly superior to us, not just in raw power but in every other aspect of moral perfection. That means his generosity, unselfishness, kindness, forgiveness, and the like, is staggeringly superior to anything we have ever before encountered. So, at no cost to us, God longs to wipe from our heavenly record every moral slip. All he needs is our permission to shower upon us all the staggering blessings of Christ’s sacrifice. He requires our permission because he chooses not to act like some fearsome tyrant, but as someone who honors our wishes. All that we need do is agree with God that we need our moral failings removed from heaven’s records and that Jesus achieved this by suffering the full penalty our sins deserve. A man was offered a presidential pardon, but on the condition that he admit his guilt. That’s the ironical situation we find ourselves in. When we admit our guilt, God pronounces us innocent. If, on the other hand, we keep trying to convince ourselves that we are innocent, we will be tried for our every sin. This is something Jesus taught over and over. Here is a powerful example: Luke 18:10-14  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Do you see it? The only people with a smidgeon of morality are those appalled by their own sinfulness. Everyone else is so deluded as to be beyond hope, unless they, too, eventually become devastated by an awareness of their own depravity. Using the Pharisee to illustrate his point, Jesus reveals that some people are unforgivable. (That is not to say they could never change and hence become forgivable, but for as long as they act like the Pharisee they cannot be forgiven.) What renders them unforgivable is not the atrociousness of their sin – everyone would say the Pharisee was much less sinful than the tax collector. They miss out on forgiveness simply because they think they have no need of forgiveness and so do not bother to ask for it. What, for example, makes blaspheming the Holy Spirit unforgivable is not the magnitude of the sin, but the fact that it is believing that Jesus, the only Person who offers divine forgiveness, is in league not with the Spirit of God but with the devil. No one believing that Jesus is of the devil would dream of seeking God’s forgiveness through Jesus. Whoever asks with faith in Jesus, receives. The Pharisee could never be forgiven in this life or the next while he never bothered to ask for forgiveness. No matter how close to sinless a person is, he cannot be forgiven if he does not ask for forgiveness. No matter how many and how disgusting a person’s sins – including blaspheming the Holy Spirit – anyone can be forgiven if that person sincerely asks for it with faith in Jesus. Anyone doing this is no longer blaspheming the Spirit. (His faith in Jesus shows that he now believes Jesus is one with the Spirit of God). This change of heart means that he is no longer unforgivable. Our past is irrelevant. Although Jesus chose the most likely characters for his story, the roles could have been reversed, with the good-living Pharisee devastated by his sinfulness, and the cheating, money-grubbing tax collector filled with excuses and self-righteousness. What matters is not our past, but our awareness that regardless of how good or bad we seem when compared with other people, relative to God each of us has been atrociously wicked. We have all been despicably evil, but only a few of us realize it, and the more we realize it, the more God longs to exalt us. The Amplified Bible puts it this way: Psalm 34:18  The Lord is close to those who are of a broken heart, and saves such as are crushed with sorrow for sin . . . When overwhelmed by the gravity of our offenses, we may fear that God has left us, but he is actually closer than ever to us. While in this state we can feel sure that God is angry with us when in reality he is brimming with tender compassion towards us. Like the lost sheep in Jesus’ parable, the Lord feels even more for anyone hurting over his or her sin than over countless “saints” who, though special to him, are not hurting. God can indeed be angry when we are in defiant rebellion against him, and yet even this is a manifestation of how important we are to him. As suggested in the book of Job, look up at the stars: are they moved from their place when you sin (Job 35:5-6)? It is only because he loves us that our sin affects God. The Lord may have been upset, but the instant we move from defiance to sorrow over our sin, his heart melts. A child has run away from home. His mother is beside herself with worry. Before long he’s seen the error of his ways and desperately wants to return home but he stays in hiding, terrified of his mother’s anger. He is the joy of her life but he is too young to grasp the implications. He’s expecting the worst imaginable punishment; unable to understand that upon return he would get the biggest hug he has ever known. That’s like you and God. While you are hiding, fearing God’s wrath, he’s wanting to smother you with kisses. Return to him and you will light up his life. You suppose his face will be black with disappointment, when actually he will be thrilled beyond words, grinning from ear to ear, to have you in his life. The tragedy is that we find that hard to believe. This is why the critical thing about salvation is not works, but faith. It’s not our lack of good works that keeps us from fully enjoying God; it’s our lack of faith in the magnitude of God’s forgiveness. We’re All In This Together We humans develop our own corrupt moral standards that allow us to label certain sins as “minor” and “excusable.” If we were drinking glasses, each of us would leak. Some of us might be in worse condition than others, but what difference does that make? Who would give a king a cracked glass? Nothing imperfect reaches God’s minimum standard. It’s an insult to God to suppose that even the most saintly person is good enough for God. In reality, earth has just two types of people: hopeless moral failures who cling to humanity’s only Savior, and hopeless moral failures who try to face eternity on their own. To abandon faith in oneself and put all one’s faith in Christ’s goodness is like stepping into a spacecraft. For even the nicest people to trust their own goodness is like them hoping they can reach the heavens by jumping high. Isaiah 64:6  All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags Carve that into the cortex of your brain. “All of us” –  “all of us”  – have become so defiled that even the greatest attempts of the most saintly person to do good is as repulsive as bodily filth. So offensive to God are our highest moral attainments that, in the original Hebrew, Scripture resorts to an offensive expression to convey this shocking truth. Quite literally, without the slightest exaggeration, Isaiah is saying that even the noblest human attempts at morality are as soiled menstrual rags. To hold up to God, as if it made me worthy, my lifetime of sacrificial service or list of sins I have avoided, is as disgusting as proudly displaying my bodily filth. The nicest non-Christian you’ll ever meet is of the devil, deceived, evil, and God’s enemy. Everyone not in spiritual union with Christ is dead to God. All of us have been in this terrifying predicament. If you’re dead, you’re dead. To argue that one corpse is in better condition or closer to being alive than another is ridiculous. Would you dare drag a corpse into a king’s presence? Would you say, “I think you should meet this man. You’ll get on well together. He’s such a good person. His corpse hardly smells at all”? A person’s kindness, goodness and sacrificial love might be so astounding as to put to shame most Christians, but that person has still sinned and the wages of sin – one sin – one tiny infringement – is death. Spiritually, we’ve all missed the boat. We are all in the same desperate situation, no matter whether we missed the lifeboat by thirty seconds, thirty minutes, thirty days, or thirty years. Imagine a dozen murderers on death row, each despising each other and thinking themselves more moral than the others. That’s a picture of all of us until we come to our senses. Who of us has not, in a flash of anger or self-righteousness, wished someone were dead? That, revealed Jesus, makes us murderers. We need murder only once in our entire lives to be a murderer. With the thought being as evil as the deed, all of us are rapists, adulterers, sadists or murderers in the eyes of the Judge who will determine where we spend eternity. Whether we or everyone on this planet finds our offense excusable is irrelevant. Whether we like it or not, our Judge is divine. He does not judge by human standards. As the stars tower high above the earth, so are his standards, and the sooner we start thinking like he does, the better. You might feel more defiled than other people, but that’s not how God sees it. His standards shatter all distinctions. For a surgeon about to operate, usual standards of cleanliness are hopelessly inadequate. You might be filthy and someone else walks off the street looking spotless, but by the standards the surgeon must maintain, both of you are equally untouchable. It can make no difference if the person approaching him is the love of his life or the most important or popular or respectable person in the world. Regardless of how special someone is or how clean by normal standards, a surgeon must not lower his standards. So it is with God. We might distinguish between sinners, but God cannot. For a glimpse of how differently God thinks, consider all the catastrophic consequences of Adam’s sin. What did he do? Murder Eve? Destroy the entire Garden of Eden? He simply ate a piece of fruit. It is not to put anyone down that I expound the truth of everyone’s depravity. On the contrary, I do it because it is God’s longing that everyone reading this will be exalted, just as the tax collector humbly faced the seriousness of his sin and was divinely exalted above the highly respected Pharisee. I dare confront you with this truth because I want you exalted not merely in your own estimation but exalted by the Lord of all. So let’s plunge into this icy truth that turns out to be the most exquisite warm spa. God’s chosen priests, Nadab and Abihu, made an offering to God in a manner similar, but not exactly identical, to how the Lord had prescribed. They were not turning away from the Lord. They were not even ignoring him. They were  worshipping  him. And yet God struck them dead for making that offering (Leviticus 10:1-2). Uzzah, seeing the Ark of God in danger of falling and being damaged, reached out in an instinctive, unpremeditated act to protect the Ark. God struck him dead for daring to touch the Holy Ark (2 Samuel 6:6-7). Ananias and Sapphira sold their own property and generously gave not just a tithe of this considerable sum, nor even several times the value of a tithe, but such a huge percentage that they fully expected everyone to presume that it was the total amount. They, too, were struck dead (Acts 5:1-11). Of course, many others have been slain by God, but I have focused on examples of particularly godly people. They were serving God. In fact, they were in the forefront of what God was doing and not even that saved them. Whether by the grace of God any of these ended up in heaven is not for me to speculate. What is certain, however, is that not only did God slay them, he made a permanent record of the severity of his judgment. Clearly, the Judge of all humanity knows that the whole world needs to realize the blood-curdling gravity of what we are tempted to dismiss as trivial, excusable slips. Instances like this show not the harshness of God, but his astounding patience towards every one of us who is still breathing. We must get it into our heads that it is not just “big” sins that are terrifyingly serious. Our consciences are so callous that even much of what we think acceptable is actually defiled. Even things we think are acts of devotion to God are enough to send us to hell. Like the disciples, we gasp, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus’ answer rings through the centuries, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26). If there is anyone on this planet that God can make so pure and holy that he would enthrone himself in that person’s very body – and, of course, there is – he can do it to you. A person overwhelmed by guilt typically feels painfully alone, but the truth is that we are all floundering in the same spiritually catastrophic dilemma. No one but Jesus has ever reached God’s minimum standard for divine acceptance. For you to reach God’s standard is no more humanly impossible – and divinely possible – than for anyone else. Your sin is no more damning than anyone else’s sin. Your path to forgiveness is the same as anyone else’s. God has powerfully used famous Christian leaders year after year while they were secretly conducting adulterous affairs until their sin was finally exposed. Nearly all of us are shocked when first hearing this. Our reaction exposes our spiritual blindness. The astounding thing is not merely that the Lord has used people regularly committing adultery; what is astounding is that he uses any of us. Probably, the most saintly Christians alive do things several times each day for which the Lord would be fully justified in striking them dead. All Christians are daily dependent upon the grace of God, even though most are as close to being as blasé about it as the Pharisee. Some of us struggle with addictions that horrify Christians. The rest of us struggle with sins that Christians excuse but horrify God. We must not judge anyone because all that does is prove our hypocrisy. We dare not abuse the grace of God. We must truly mourn our sins and fight them and crave total obedience to God. Exposing the extreme sinfulness of all of us might be the last thing you would expect in a webpage devoted to helping people forgive themselves, but I dare not present less than the full truth of God. It is the truth, not half-lies, that has set me free and will set you free. Yes, full forgiveness is available, but the praying, temple-attending Pharisee went home unforgiven because he never bothered to seek forgiveness. Blinded by his own smugness, he had no conception of what we are discussing, even though his Bible knowledge must have been immensely superior to the tax collector’s. If a building’s foundations have crumbled, it is no achievement to acknowledge that there are cracks in the wall and then start patching them. The entire building must be razed and rebuilt from scratch. Some people might think their effort to redecorate the building proves their high standards, when it merely proves their foolishness. So many people who think themselves Christians are like those who think that the building that will soon collapse is basically okay and just needs a bit of redecorating. Like that Pharisee, they are dangerously ignorant of how corrupt every one of us is. All of us – not just those blessed with a tender conscience – are in the same chronic need of God’s forgiveness. In the words of Jesus: Luke 13:1-3  Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. . . .” A cold-blooded murderer’s spiritual need is no greater than mine. If, however, that murderer is more aware of his sins that I am of my own, then I am the one in the more terrifying predicament. If you are still only mildly convinced that by God’s standards no one is less sinful nor more sinful than you have been, I’ll have one last shot at opening your eyes, but please go beyond my attempts and pray for a divine revelation. “No one is perfect,” we glibly say. How serious would you rate the sin of sadistically devoting hour after hour after hour to torturing to death an innocent person? It was because I’m not perfect that the eternal King of kings, the darling of God’s heart, was tortured to death. My lack of perfection stripped him naked and publicly humiliated him. I flayed his flesh, mercilessly whipping the Innocent One, through whom the stars and flowers were made. My imperfection callously drove nails through the hands and feet of the One who has given me every good thing I have ever enjoyed. My sin did that. Dare I call it a minor sin? In the words of Peter, “You killed the author of life” (Acts 3:15). Oops! The Lord of lords is the indescribably majestic Being who alone keeps the entire universe from disintegrating (Hebrews 1:3). And my “insignificant slips” killed this stupendous Being on whom everything in existence teeters! It is quite literally a miracle that the catastrophic event my sin instigated did not precipitate the annihilation of the entire universe. Dare I rate that as anything less than equal to the most atrocious offense in the universe? Each of us has been monstrously evil. Self-righteous people despise this truth, but what offends the proud, comforts those who are overwhelmed by their own sin. This truth initially seems so devastating that most people spend their entire lives running from it. Those who dare face the truth head-on, however, eventually discover that it is actually one of the most exciting of truths. The truth that every one of us deserves hell is the great leveler. That of itself is a great relief to the humble. Most gossip and slander is an attempt to pull someone down to our own level. But anyone understanding the truth we have been exploring, realizes that without Christ, all of us are already on the same level. When the full implications hit, the pressure to slander, gossip and resent people vanishes, just as being given multiplied trillions of dollars would evaporate every temptation to steal or covet anyone’s money. But after leveling us, the Almighty exalts us far beyond our highest dreams until we are sharing God’s very throne. From there, all itching to put anyone down disappears. It is only insecure people haunted by feelings of inferiority who feel the “need” to convince themselves that they are superior to at least some people. It is a failure to comprehend that we are all equally defiled that keeps millions of people blackmailed into keeping guilty secrets – often from those who love them the most. They end up staggering through life feeling sickeningly alone and unloved and terrified that if ever their dirty secret were discovered they would be rejected and despised. Like a gangrenous wound slowly killing someone because he is too riddled with shame even to admit he needs medical help, so is a guilty past until we make the liberating discovery that we have nothing to hide from each other because we are all equally defiled. Spiritually, people aware of the hideousness of their sins are light years ahead of everyone else. Those who think themselves good are so deluded by their own pride that they are to be pitied. The humble know they have been abominably wicked, but if they accept Bible truth they know they are not alone. Everyone on this planet is in the same appalling predicament, and for each Christ offers the same glorious solution. Humanity’s depravity throws the holy Lord into an horrific dilemma. The darlings of his heart – that’s you and me – are utterly unacceptable and should be eternally trashed. The Almighty has resolved this seeming impossibility by devising a way in which each of us can be re-made, thus completely undoing the effects of our sin and making us perfect. Surprisingly many people feel they are more evil than other people. Some even take this to the extreme of concluding that they are unforgivable. The fact that any sin, not just “big” sins, will send a person to eternal damnation should reassure such people that we are all in this together. Nevertheless, the Bible truth that we are all in the same appalling predicament is a two-edged sword, cutting not only those who pride themselves in their “clean” living but many of those who are devastated over some of their sins. If “small” sins can condemn us to hell, then our eternity teeters on our willingness to repent not only of the sins we find inexcusable, but also on us repenting of sins we think excusable. For an example of a damnable sin we try to excuse, consider a refusal to pray God’s blessing upon those who have shamefully treated us. The despicable brutes who have hurt us are as worthy of hell as we are. (Remember, our sins tortured to death the Innocent Son of God.) For forgiveness, we must act like the tax collector, in mourning our sins. But since “small” sins are just as deadly as the ones that disturb us, for us to escape hell  all  our sins must be forgiven. It is therefore essential that we regret not only the sins we loathe but the sins we love. The Lord freely pours his innocence upon all who want it. To want God’s innocence we must want God to deliver us – to rip from our lives –  all  sin. We must want to be rid forever from  all  sinful pleasure. Suppose the Pharisee had been rushing to the temple. He turns a corner and does not see a toddler in the middle of the street before his donkey tramples the little girl to death. He enters the temple as hardened as ever over his sins but riddled with guilt over the death of the toddler. Do you expect him to be forgiven all the sins he is oblivious to, just because he is filled with remorse over an accident? In fact, he might focus so much on the accident that he is even less aware of his other sins. Only if the incident caused him to review his entire life and he repented of his self-righteousness would there be hope for him. Distinguishing between “big” sins and “small” sins is largely a human invention devised by guilt-ridden sinners desperate to feel superior to certain other sinners. The same Jesus who was so gentle with those who regretted their sin was furious with hypocrites. To expect God’s forgiveness while we refuse to forgive someone is to tell God, “Do what I say, not what I do.” What could be more hypocritical? Despite all our protests, anyone we refuse to forgive is actually no more worthy of hell, and no less forgivable, than we are. One sin we must want to be freed from is the sin of refusing to be as forgiving of others as we want God to be forgiving of us. Matthew 6:15  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Luke 6:36-38  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. The generosity or the miserliness of the measure we use to pour forgiveness on those who have hurt us is the measure God will use to forgive us. Like spitting into the wind, the way we treat others lands on our own head. If we treat others as unforgivable, that is how God will treat us. Grace is not license to sin; it is license not to sin. It is freedom not just from the penalty of sin but from bondage to sin. Purified If it is an insult to God’s holiness to think anything substandard is good enough for God, it is an insult to his omnipotence to think that for God anything is beyond repair. Either God can restore you to holy perfection, or he isn’t God. And either he longs to make you as holy and perfect as he is, or he isn’t love. There are several stages to this process: 1.  God waiting for you to reach the point where you entrust your moral restoration into his care. Those infatuated by their own “righteousness” remain stuck here forever. They might piously talk about Jesus but their faith is really in their own efforts to please God. Blessed indeed are they who are repulsed by their own sin and know that nothing less than the divine miracle achieved on the cross could save them from eternal damnation. 2.  You letting God forgive you and become one with you; letting him treat you as if you were the perfection of holiness, even though you still make moral mistakes. 3.  God training you in godly living. This involves not just acting like God but thinking like God. One of the saddest things in marriage is when a man sees his wife as stunningly beautiful and is so in love with her that he can hardly contain himself but she shrinks from him because she sees herself as fat and unattractive. This is not just painful for the wife and ever so frustrating for the man who tingles with love for her, it is particularly sad because it is so unnecessary. He’s blessed with a wife he thinks is gorgeous and she is blessed with a husband who feels this way about her and neither get to enjoy this heaven-on-earth because she is too self-absorbed to delight in how exquisite she is in his eyes. Ideally, when she is alone with her beloved, all that should matter to her is his opinion of her, not how she fears others view her or how she sees herself. I know it is sometimes a difficult struggle for a woman to do this, but if only she could let go of her view of herself and see herself through her husband’s eyes, reveling in the fact that he sees her as beautiful, both of them could soar to unimagined heights of fulfillment and ecstasy. Likewise, much in this stage of our spiritual life is devoted to learning to take our eyes off ourselves and centering them on God and his enjoyment of us. It is not easy. We tend to keep slipping back into looking at ourselves, rather than continually looking into God’s eyes. If we discipline ourselves to keep our focus on God, then if ever we see ourselves it is as we are, reflected in his  loving  eyes. At the same time, this stage is characterized by growing more and more like the One we are focusing on. Gradually we learn to overcome what we used to regard as major besetting sins. Victories themselves then become a critical test because looking at ourselves, instead of producing shame, can start producing pride, which is even more shameful. We must continue to focus on Jesus and as we do we will begin to cooperate with God in removing other imperfections in our lives that we had hardly noticed before. 4.  The final stage occurs in the next life. It is you being as blameless as the sinless Lamb of God, not just by the Judge overlooking your failings, but by God actually making you sinlessly perfect in your every thought and deed for all eternity. Now that we know where this process is headed, let’s briefly re-visit stage one. God’s mind-boggling love for us moves him to give us great dignity by not treating us as objects. God can give us that dignity only by refusing to make us perfect in his eyes unless we want it. But note the progression from stage one to stage four. God treats people as if they were now sinless, only because it is a foregone conclusion that they will become sinless. We can become sinless only by God taking from us not just the sins that disgust us but also by taking from us the sins that delight us. And since God respects our wishes, he will not violate our will. He will not treat us as sinless now if we do not want to be sinless now. We are saved not by our works but by a divine miracle. The tax collector went home forgiven before he had a chance to physically do anything. He received the divine miracle of forgiveness, and the Pharisee missed out, not because of what they did but because of their heart attitude. Jesus gave sick people the divine miracle of healing only because they wanted it. You will recall that he often questioned the sick to confirm that healing was what they really wanted. Likewise, God will treat us as sinless – in other words, forgive us – only if we decide that we want to be sinless. If we had cancer, a big part of us might not want to be operated on but our reluctance is not the critical issue. All that matters is whether, despite our misgivings, we sign over to a surgeon permission to do whatever he considers necessary to remove every trace of cancer and we agree to follow that up by taking whatever medication he prescribes afterwards. Likewise, a big part of us might love our sin and not want to be sinless but our reluctance will not stymie God as long as we muster our will to decide to give God permission to make us sinless and to devote the rest of our lives to cooperating with him in this process. If you were a thousand times more evil than your worst fears, it would not stop Jesus from making you blameless. However, if you were the most saintly person alive and you died thinking you did not need Jesus’ cleansing, you would rot for eternity in the stench of sins in your life that you were too reprobate to even notice. Without exception, all of us are evildoers, but what infuriates God are evildoers who think they are better than other evildoers. Those who think they are good enough just because they seem to be in a bit better condition than some others are unlikely to see the absolute necessity of Jesus perfecting them. This is the most terrifying blindness because it has eternal implications. When people see no great need of the purification that only Jesus can give, the Lord has no choice but to withdraw and leave them to try to work their own way out of hell into heaven, which of course is impossible. Their one hope is to come to their senses and admit that they are as worthy of hell as any and every person on this planet. If only they would humble themselves that way, the Lord would rush to exalt them. Those Who Miss Out We are all like people with cancer that will kill us unless we seek medical attention. Life’s most dangerous act is to live in denial of “sin cancer.” When you are terminally ill, there is no comfort in saying, “His cancer looks worse than mine.” Only after admitting to ourselves that we have this “cancer” will we seek life-saving treatment. So although this admission might initially seem depressing it is actually our passport to life and joy. Ultimately, it is denial that is scary and depressing. We must face the bad news – that we are terminally sin-sick – in order to enjoy the glorious news that we can be cured and overflow with vibrant health beyond our wildest hopes. If ever the saying, “No pain, no gain” applied to anything, it applies to this. This is why Jesus said blessed are they who mourn  now  (Luke 6:21,23). Everyone will mourn over his or her moral condition. The only difference between people is timing. Mourn now over your sin and you will find what Jesus offers and burst into purity and endless joy. Mourn too late, and you’ll mourn forever. Ezekiel 6:6-9  Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste . . . Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the LORD. But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations. Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me . . .  They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices.  (Emphasis mine) The ones to be envied are those who mourn while the joy of forgiveness is still on offer. Their mourning will turn into dancing; their sorrow into never-ending joy. When you stand before your Judge he will not be interested in even hearing the charges. All that his penetrating eyes will see is whether you have clothed yourself with the righteousness of Christ – whether you are trusting Jesus’ purity for your approval, or whether you have the audacity to try to go it alone. The only people who miss out – and tragically there are many – are those too arrogant to admit that they need Jesus’ purification or who refuse to believe he is powerful enough to make them pristine in God’s eyes. Let’s try a parable. There was once a tiny nation in which everyone not in the king’s palace contracted food poisoning. They discovered that whenever people with this condition prepared food, they unavoidably contaminated it and spread the epidemic. Being unable to keep down contaminated food, and unable to prepare food without contaminating it, they were in a desperate predicament. Alarmed by this, the king prepared from his own supplies a magnificent, endless feast to which everyone was invited. Protocol, however, demanded that no one could attend a royal feast without presenting the king with a highly prized delicacy that he would sample and then add to the banquet. Knowing that none of the invitees could provide uncontaminated food, the king himself, at great expense, provided everyone with food fit for a king that they could then give back to the king as their own gift. Some despised the king’s free entry gift. Being too proud to accept it, they determined to pay their own way. So they prepared contaminated food and offered it to the king. You can imagine how the king felt about that! Others were more noble in that they would not dare risk giving the king food poisoning but, having a low opinion of the king, they could not believe his generosity. They decided it was too good to be true that the king would accept the gift he himself had provided. So they refused to attend the feast and resigned themselves to starving to death. How do you think that made the king feel? But some accepted the king’s generosity and, as the king had always intended, they gratefully gave his own gift back to him. Upon receipt of the gift, the king welcomed them into the feast where they were not only saved from starvation but enjoyed festivities beyond anything they had ever known. To which group do you belong? Those offending the King of kings by offering him their contaminated good works? Those condemning themselves to dying of spiritual starvation and insulting the Lord of Glory by refusing to believe that by his sacrifice the Lamb of God has paid the entry price? Or those with the humility to accept Jesus’ payment and enter God’s magnificent feast? Please keep reading. Continued ..... How can I forgive myself?

Help for People with D.I.D. - Part 1 Healing your “Inner Child” / Inner Pain   Help for Alters (Insiders) and Sufferers of Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.)or Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)   If you suffered trauma as a child, the traumatized part of you could have separated from the rest of you and need special attention. Understanding this can be crucial for healing.     Is anyone too macho or mature to have ever been a child? No matter how much you might hate it, you are human.   We all long to push a distressing experience out of our mind and just get on with life without mentally coming to terms with it, but this is not nearly as heroic nor as helpful as we would like to think. Denying the reality of an inner wound does not prevent a suppressed part of us from acutely suffering, nor does it stop the pain from spilling over to the rest of our lives in ways that can make the cause frustratingly hard to identify. Unlike the power of resolving inner pain, the burden of trying to suppress pain is a dead weight keeping too many of us from the joyous freedom that would otherwise be ours.   I challenge you to embrace reality, embarking on a terrifyingly exciting adventure of self-discovery that could lead to more peace and fulfillment than you have ever dared believe possible. You can end inner pain.   Nevertheless, desperate times call for desperate measures. If, for example, an emergency were sufficiently serious, you might be brave enough to sacrifice a limb, cutting it off to save the rest of you.   Pain avoidance is not nearly as simple, however, as trying to cut unpleasant memories out of our lives. Consider someone with a seriously wounded leg. Pain in the injured leg might push him to opt for amputation but after surgery he could be devastated to find himself hounded by phantom limb pain in which he suffers pain as if the amputated limb were still there and as wounded as ever. Likewise, cutting ourselves off from painful memories is more drastic than we realize and rarely as effective in ending our distress as we suppose.   Such are the mysteries of inner (emotional) pain that to deepen our insight it will help to continue to look briefly at something slightly easier to understand: physical pain. If a gang of thugs kept beating you, it would hurt, of course, but by releasing such chemicals as adrenalin, your brain would temporarily shut down some of your consciousness of pain, thus helping you to flee from your attackers. Running when seriously injured brings great risk of inflaming the injuries – perhaps raising the risk to life-threatening levels – but the temporary necessity of escape overrides other vital concerns. So during the emergency, your mind’s partial suppression of your awareness of pain is a precious gift of God. Despite your understandable longing never to feel pain, however, once you are safe, continuing to have little consciousness of pain could be counter-productive. Without pain signaling the extent of your injuries – and hence alerting you to the urgency of seeking medical treatment – your well-being could be seriously impaired.   This natural response to physical trauma parallels our natural response to severe inner pain. In the short term, the suppression of your inner pain can be a blessing by helping you cope with the necessities of life. For as long as this suppression continues, however, it will keep you from healing.   Being human means we have an inbuilt need not merely to store facts but to process events both mentally and emotionally. That does not necessarily mean crying, but accessing the full range of human emotions and analyzing the experience until we fully come to terms with it, before finally offloading the pain in an emotionally healthy way. When we suffer something highly unpleasant we long to disconnect from the entire event and live as if it had never happened. But the memory and the need to respond to it in a fully human manner remains a part of us.   So to emotionally disconnect from the event is to disconnect from an essential part of who we are – a part of us that continues to exist and feel and attempts to grapple with the experience in an authentically human way – no matter how much we wish that part of us would die. We either help that part of our humanity find peace or we keep our lives in needless turmoil.   When people have something so horrible in their past that their mind recoils from the very thought of it, we can understand the mind trying to suppress all memory of the event. A simple blocking of the past would not work, however, if a person is continually reminded of it by, for example, having to endure similar trauma every few days. If the trauma is on-going, though less than twenty-four hours every day of every week, the mind has to employ a more sophisticated approach to maintaining sanity by giving itself a big a reprieve as possible whenever the trauma is not occurring. The mind has to divide itself so that part of it has the capacity to function whenever the person is being re-traumatized and another part is kept from awareness of what is happening so that it is able to function at times that are less traumatic without being hampered by conscious awareness of the horrors that occurred yesterday and the paralyzing fear that they might recur tomorrow.   Additional types of trauma – or trauma multiplying beyond the capacity of one part of the mind to cope – can cause further fragmenting of the mind. That way, no part has to cope with  every  horrific memory and the consciousness that more such horrors are likely. The mind-crippling task of trying to deal with everything at once is broken down into smaller, though still horrific, pieces.   It is not only memories that are compartmentalized because the person has to be able to function – often at quite a sophisticated level – while being traumatized. So intellectual abilities have to be divided up as well. Some abilities can be replicated in another part of the brain, just like a right-handed people can develop the side of their brain that controls their left hand so that they can get better at writing with their left hand. Not all abilities are replicated, however, with the result these people are usually more skilled than they realize until they learn about all their other parts.   Far from being a freak, these people have, from an early age, stumbled upon an ingenious mental strategy for coping with situations that are almost beyond human endurance.   As a child’s brain grows it becomes increasingly rigid and the ability to compartmentalize itself this way is lost if the process is not initiated by around about seven years of age. If someone learns the technique when young, however, the person can continue further compartmentalizing his/her brain later in life.   So traumatized children – especially those who are artistically and/or intellectually gifted – have a remarkable ability. They can suppress inner pain by splitting into a functioning part of them that is fully aware of their suffering, and a part of them that is much less aware. It has been theorized that the split might come about through them trying to cope by intensely imagining that the horrific experience is happening to someone else, but even babies can split. Because each part of the person grapples alone with a different set of events, each part has a unique awareness of certain emotional pain, and hence a distinct consciousness.   Many people call these disconnected parts of a person  alters . Sometimes they are referred to as  insiders . Some people simply use the term  parts . I very much like this last term, even though I don’t use it much in my pages because the word is so common that it would not help search engine users find the webpage. “Alter” sounds too alien and even “insider” sounds a little spooky. “Part” helps reinforce that each alter is a part of the one person. Each time a new alter is discovered, it is finding a vital part of oneself that you were not even aware was missing.   Alters act like persons within a person. They are part of the full person (although they might not realize it) and they make their own decisions and have feelings, intelligence, and an individual personality.   Writes one of Alice’s alters to one of Jake’s alters (two of my friends who have let me share this with you – names changed to protect anonymity):   I want you to know that I respect and admire you for your courage to split off and keep this secret from Jake so that he could survive. What a sacrifice you have made. It is like agreeing to live with a knife in your heart for the sake of the others.   The benefit of splitting is that the part of the person not conscious of the worst aspects of the trauma is better able to soldier on with life’s daily demands. As we have seen also applies to a wounded person fleeing an attacker, a lowered consciousness of the severity of the trauma can, in the short term, prove a clever coping mechanism, but there is a serious downside.   A part of you could have been so desperate to protect the rest of you by keeping unpleasant feelings and information from you that it severs lines of communication with you. The unintended consequence, however, is that the restricted flow of information operates in both directions. The price of making painful information inaccessible to you is that vital information you discover later in life cannot get back to the hurting part of you.   That part of you left to cope alone with the full force of the trauma not only continues to reel in pain, it never gets to move on or grow up. The isolated, hurting part of you remains trapped at approximately the same mental age and limited knowledge, year after year. Usually it cannot benefit from new insights you gain later in life – insights that would otherwise have enabled the hurting part of you to heal. For example, the inner child in a sex abuse survivor remains unable to see through the abuser’s former lies that the adult part of the person can see through. So the damaging power of those haunting lies continues, and the person fails to heal.   Similarly, the suppressed, hurting part cannot access the spiritual understanding that the person gained later in life. Thankfully, the disconnected part can be taught these liberating, healing truths but usually this can happen only if that part of the person is acknowledged and dialog takes place in which these truths are taught as one would teach anyone else of similar “age” and experiences. Unless this happens, the deeply hurting, unhealed part will remain with the person for life, and make its presence felt in mysteriously vague, unpleasant ways.   Sadly, fear of the unknown and false shame make it exceedingly difficult for most people to face the possibility that they have alters. In actual fact, if I discovered I had multiple personalities, I’d be excited about it, but I have the advantage of understanding all the benefits flowing from such a diagnosis.   No matter how much you suppress alters and live in denial, if you have alters, they are an inseparable part of you. Keeping them suppressed would sentence you to remaining only a shadow of the wonderful person you could be. Yes, when alters first surface they have pain and problems, but the key is not to try to rid yourself of these essential parts of you but to help them heal – and this is fairly easy. Anyone trying to suppress alters is like someone with injured fingers and toes who, instead of tending the wounds, wants to hack off all his arms and legs! Each alter has unique gifts or abilities, such as creativity or a special skill or valuable character trait or a key to healing that will empower you to soar beyond what you could otherwise achieve.   If You Don’t Have Alters   You don’t need multiple personalities to have a wounded inner child. A woman, who as far I know does not have alters, has given me permission to share the following:   Just over a year ago I purchased a Christian CD of baby lullabies and sent it to my new grandson. I kept thinking about that CD. The next time I was in town I purchased one for  myself . I would have never thought of it on my own. I’ve never known anyone to suggest such a thing. It was a revelation from the Holy Spirit. For weeks that turned into months I had this music playing softly while I read my Bible and prayed. I was absolutely amazed at the nurturing and healing that came to me from such music in the background. It was an inexpensive investment that paid big dividends for me.   You just might want to give some thought to purchasing a children’s Christian CD to see if it doesn’t help heal the inner child in you that was neglected (or at least not supported very well) in childhood. Sometimes we need to become that little child again before we can move on.   How Can You Know if You Have an Alter?   Should you have alters, becoming aware of this fact is unlikely to be easy. After all, they formed to keep things from you. Moreover, needless fears and misconceptions about the implications of having alters cause most people’s minds to recoil from the thought of having alters. The result is high psychological pressure for people with alters to remain unaware of their alters. So despite all the healing advantages of finding that you have alters, things are stacked against you discovering them.   Winning the trust of a terrified jackrabbit might be less of a challenge, but the only sure way to discover alters is to so win their confidence that they decide to talk to you regularly. Until alters feel safe to do this, you can only look for vague clues. Should you have alters, do not expect to have any awareness of, at best, more than a few of the symptoms mentioned below.   Although some people with alters have obvious gaps in their memory of the distant past, there are some who, even before healing begins, have a more detailed and complete memory of their childhood than average people who have never had alters. This is because alters do not necessarily retain sole memory of certain events. What they keep to themselves (until they begin to heal) is the deepest emotional reaction to certain traumatic events. Rather than mere facts, it is particularly emotional ownership of these events that they keep from the rest of the person.   So people with undetected alters might not necessarily have missing years. They might, however, have the occasional missing moment in everyday life that cannot be attributed to alcohol or drugs. They might, for instance, lose keys or other personal items and find them in places where they cannot recall putting them. Other possibilities include goods appearing that they cannot recall purchasing, inexplicable bank account withdrawals, finding themselves somewhere with no recollection of how they got there, or having no memory of doing things in the recent past that other people claim to have witnessed them doing.   Sometimes people with alters discover that they can protect themselves from self-harm or other unwanted behavior by hiding   from themselves  knives, credit cards or whatever. They know where they placed the objects, and yet putting them in an unusual place works when an alter does not observe the hiding.   If you have sole access to your computer, check  History  on your Internet Browser to see if you have visited websites you cannot recall having seen. If you retain electronic copies of sent emails, check them to see if you recognize them all. An itemized phone bill, credit card account, or anything else tracking your actions might also be revealing.   Of course, we all have memory lapses but with alters, lapses are usually more pronounced than for most people. Some people have even feared Alzheimer’s, when their lapses were simply due to a suppressed part of the person taking over for a while and doing and thinking things that it keeps hidden from the rest of the person. It is tragically common for people with alters to be called liars when their denials are simply because they genuinely don't remember certain things.   Until healing progresses, alters are particularly active when the rest of the person is asleep. You could wake up to find things moved. It might just be sleepwalking but it could be more.   I used to provide e-mail support for abuse survivors. With several different survivors I have suddenly received an e-mail that seems out of character for that person. Besides the subject matter seeming unusual, the grammar and spelling is often more childlike than their usual standard. Sometimes I initially thought that maybe the person wrote the e-mail while under the influence of drugs or alcohol but often it turns out that it is the child part of them temporarily taking over. When I send a copy of the e-mail to the person, he or she is often shocked, having no recollection of having ever written it.     Had the correspondence been handwritten, most likely there would be a noticeable change in handwriting. So another clue to the presence of alters is changes in handwriting in, for example, one’s journal. In fact, keeping a journal is a good idea, especially doing so at different times of the day (different times and situations are more likely to reveal different alters). You might be surprised what you find later when re-reading your journal.   Some adult survivors sometimes find themselves acting in a childlike way. They might, for example, have a collection of children’s toys. Again, to some extent, we all have times when we act a little childlike, but when it is more pronounced, it could be the inner child temporarily making his/her presence felt.   Another possible indicator of an alter is sometimes having certain abilities and sometimes not. You might, for example, have created artwork or poems of a standard far beyond what you think yourself capable of. Or you might be mystified as to why you are occasionally unable to do something – perhaps to spell or read music or some other skill – that at other times you can easily do.   Since she was seven, a friend of mine was hopeless at mathematics and yet she kept getting high marks in the subject. She could ace a test, go home and find herself quite unable to solve simple math problems. At college she elected to complete the same algebra course with the same teacher not once, not twice but three times because, despite continually getting high grades, she didn’t have a clue about the subject. Determined not to let it beat her, she even tried to do the course a fourth time, but her teacher forbade her on the grounds that she was too good at the subject to keep repeating it. It was not until she was in her late thirties that she discovered an alter of hers, formed at age seven, who not only specialized in mathematics but who, out of fear of being pushed aside by other parts of the person, deliberately kept the rest of the person mathematically ignorant.   Another possible clue is having extended times in which one feels unreal, as if in a dream or not really there. Some describe it as like observing everything from behind a glass wall. It is known as co-consciousness.   Another possibility, is sometimes thinking of oneself as “we” or “us,” or feeling as if there is another person inside of you.   Hearing voices that seem to come from inside you is yet another possibility. What these voices say could seem a little strange – as might be expected from someone who has suffered bizarre and terrifying abuse – but, in contrast to people with certain other conditions, the voices are relatively rational and sane.   Another clue is occasionally having two conflicting emotions; perhaps, for example, feeling happy and yet deep inside feeling sad and trapped.   All of the above are common symptoms of what therapists call Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.). Not everyone has every symptom and any supposed symptoms should only be regarded as clues, not diagnostic proof. For example, an embarrassed woman confided to a friend of mine that she kept losing her keys. “What is emotionally upsetting you?” asked my discerning friend. The problem turned out not to be D.I.D., nor Alzheimer’s, but simply a reaction to stress.   There are questionnaire-type psychological tests designed to diagnose D.I.D. They can only be administered by professionals and are expensive. See  Psychological Tests to Diagnose Dissociative Identity Disorder.   Not as Weird as You Think   An older term for Dissociative Identity Disorder is Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Regardless of name, its existence has been recognized by researchers at least as early as the 1800s.   In a sense, we all have multiple personalities and switch between them according to our circumstances. We would act differently, for instance, in each of the following circumstances:     *  In the presence of a head of state *  When alone with our spouse *  On a night out with the girls/guys *  When playing with children *  When depressed   In other ways, too, everyone has “multiple personalities.” For example, we might say, “My heart says one thing, but my head says another.” The ability to see things from such different perspectives can be a significant asset. When indecisive, we speak of being “in two minds.” When dieting we are not sure which part of us will win – the part wanting to be thin or part wanting to keep eating. In Romans 7, Paul devoted almost an entire chapter detailing the battle within myself between the part of him wanting to obey God and the part wanting to indulge himself. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).   So having multiple personalities is not nearly as abnormal as it first seems. Moreover, dissociation is normal. In order to focus on the task at hand, all of us sometimes temporarily put unpleasant memories out of our minds, or tune out to such distractions as background noises. It is just that for some people this natural tendency is done to a greater extent. For them, shutting off awareness of certain distressing things is done so effectively that a separate consciousness forms within the person, with part of the person knowing, feeling and thinking some things that the other part does not.   Therapists sometimes call each distinct identity an  alternate personality  or, to use a term already introduced,  alter  for short. As mentioned, the term  insider  is also sometimes used, and some feel more comfortable with the term  part . The personality that controls the person most often is usually referred to as the  host .   The distinction between host and other parts is seldom set in concrete. A part that has been host for years might suddenly feel overwhelmed or experience new trauma that causes it to go into deep hiding. Another alter is then forced to take over, or a new one is formed for the purpose. The new host might later on split and form new alters who see themselves as having split off from the new host, and feel more connected to the new host than to the former host. Over a lifetime, someone might end up having had several hosts. Sometimes more than one alter might simultaneously share the role of host.   Since the host is the part most seen in public, other alters often sacrifice themselves to “protect” the host from distressing feelings and/or memories, thus enabling the host – the public face of the system of alters – to better maintain the appearance of normality. They also do this to free the host from oppressive distractions that would hinder the host’s ability to perform important functions such as succeeding in school or employment.   A part might become host due to having the best selection of natural abilities for the role but, if for no reason other than having the most relevant experience, the host usually ends up with the best social skills and other abilities, such as work skills, needed for everyday living. So a change of host is not only usually precipitated by a trauma, it is itself traumatic because the host takes into hiding with him or her vital information needed for everyday living. The new host is left to flounder, having to try to pick up knowledge on the fly.   The host might have had the most opportunities to develop, but every part of a person is important. While they remain separated, each part has exclusive access to part of the person’s intellectual capacity. To be whole, a person needs every part. Moreover, given half a chance, other parts can develop astonishingly and in ways that the host could never achieve.   People (hosts) who are just becoming aware that have D.I.D. are often tempted to feel superior to their alters and regard them as little more than nuisances. A friend of mine, who is himself a host, beautifully corrects this mistaken notion:   In my system, I’m the “host”. By that I mean I’m the one my alters laid their lives on the line to protect. I’m the one for whom my alters gave up so much in order to keep safe. I’m the one they held above the water, while they drowned, as it were. They gave up living in this life and held on to agonizingly painful experiences and situations so that I could survive and move on, while for years they were locked away in the dark haunted by those experiences without contact with the outside world.   I owe them everything, and each time I communicate with any of them I do my best to treat them with the same respect that I would treat someone who lost their legs diving under a truck to save the life of one of my children. Yes, they can be  very  angry. Yes, they can be annoying, controlling, distracting, painful to live with, but so might someone dealing with the consequences of having lost their legs saving my child. Regardless of that anger, I would happily immerse myself in it to give them one ounce of relief, especially after what they went through for me. It’s the least I could do.   The exciting thing is that I’ve found that as I treat them with respect and let them know that their needs are important to me by working with them on getting those needs met and allowing them time to just be themselves in a safe environment where they aren’t judged, they heal. They start to realize that those situations they held deep inside themselves have now past, and that they are now safe. As they are cared for, they start to use their skills to contribute meaningfully to our family – the whole person of whom I am a part.   For example, I have an alter called Do, who is very fast at getting things done. He now helps when we have limited time to get things done really quickly. This morning he came out to help me get my kids ready for swimming lessons. He managed to get them completely dressed, bags packed, everything in under eight minutes. Normally that would take me around an hour.   As mentioned, if you suspect you have an alters, conversing directly with them is the only sure way to confirm their existence, but that can be as challenging as trying to entice undercover agents to admit they have been spying on you and freely tell you everything. Moreover, getting to this point with an alter is a life-changing step not to be taken lightly. Once one alter begins spilling the beans and finding acceptance, others are likely to become emboldened to likewise make themselves known, and your life will probably never be the same again. Even if – as I expect will happen – by the journey’s end it proves highly beneficial, there will almost certainly be times when you regret ever starting this journey to peace and wholeness. I warn you not to start this process without being sure you are led of God in every step of the way, including your choice of counselor. On the other hand, doing nothing (and so keeping alters feeling rejected and in more or less enforced solitary confinement) is also strewn with dangers. In fact, doing nothing could be the worst mistake of your life.   Alters typically carry so much pain that ignoring them might be all it takes to make them suicidal. I wish I didn’t have to give this chilling warning, but to end up with a suicidal alter could be more than just unpleasant for you, it is at least theoretically possible for that alter to succeed in killing you despite you wanting to live.   The most knowledgeable people say you should never act solely on the basis of written information about Dissociative Identity Disorder but should seek an appropriately qualified and experienced professional, and that even such experts, like other health professions, need liability insurance. Certainly, this webpage is no do-it-yourself manual and despite my considerable experience helping people with alters I should not call myself an expert. On the other hand, I know of only one infallible expert – the Lord Jesus Christ – and I plead with you to earnestly seek his guidance before doing anything, and likewise before deciding for the exceedingly risky option of doing nothing.   It is not uncommon for abuse survivors to go through life unaware that there are suppressed parts of them (alters) until one of the alters finally makes his/her presence felt when the person is beginning to heal. Alters have two pressing, but conflicting, needs. One is to burst out of the agony of solitary confinement by communicating with someone. The other need is to avoid further rejection and ridicule by remaining in isolated silence. When their host begins to seem more accepting of them or they find someone such as a trustworthy, understanding counselor or friend who they think might accept them, the balance between these conflicting needs could tip in favor of the alters believing it seems safe enough to risk revealing themselves. So they might suddenly start communicating for the first time. If they think they can trust someone more than their host, they might briefly switch off their host’s awareness so that the host knows nothing of the conversation.   So despite alters longing to end their isolation, it is rare for them to reveal themselves if they think they are likely to be rejected or thought lowly of. If you have alters, they will probably be able to hear your thoughts and words on some occasions but not on others. So an alter could perhaps be enticed to converse with you if you were, on several different occasions, to say to yourself something along these lines:   If anyone can hear me, I want to apologize for any way I have offended you. I didn’t want to believe you were real but I now understand that I was wrong. I want to love and accept you and would value you sharing with me. Please speak to me.   Don’t try this right now, however.  There are dangers to avoid that are explained in the rest of this webpage and the two webpages it leads to.   It usually helps if you speak out loud (or at least in an audible whisper) to your alters. If you suspect you might know the alter’s name or something about the alter, use this information as you speak. This, too, might increase the chance of a reply.   Understanding Alters   Even though having alters is a common, well-documented reaction to childhood trauma, it is usual for people, upon first discovering that they have alters, to find it deeply disturbing and seek repeated assurance that they are not going insane. In reality, for any of us who have alters, the discovery is a very healthy sign and a significant step towards far more peace, joy and fulfillment than we have ever known.   As explained in a link at the end of this series of pages, I believe that Dissociative Identity Disorder develops the brain beyond what it otherwise would have, such that when a person begins to heal from the disorder, having had multiple personalities actually turns out to be an intellectual advantage. Of course, until healing commences, having Dissociative Identity Disorder is primarily a disadvantage because and each alter (and the host) has access to only a portion of the person’s brain.   Feelings of confusion as well as strange symptoms are normal for people recovering from D.I.D. From time to time, a friend of mine would ask the Lord what was wrong with him. Each time God would simply but very tenderly reply:     You have alters. I’m healing you. It is most unfortunate that in old, ill-informed circles, schizophrenia was mislabeled “split personality.” This grossly inappropriate name might cause someone unfamiliar with psychology to wrongly imagine there could be a link between schizophrenia and what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. There is not even a superficial similarity. Unlike schizophrenia, Dissociative Identity Disorder does not cause bouts of insanity, nor is it helped by medication (although someone with D.I.D. might have additional conditions like depression that might be helped by medication). The differences go on and on.   The term bi-polar is even less likely to be confused with Multiple Personality Disorder but just to be sure, let me assure you that this condition is also very different to what we are discussing.   A friend of mine was seeking a prayer partner that he could be transparent with. The man he had in mind was a psychologist who attended his home fellowship. My friend prayed fervently before approaching the man and wisely tested the waters by asking his view of Dissociative Identity Disorder. His response being favorable, my friend confided that he had alters. The psychologist’s response was, “Wow! That’s usually only reserved for the highly intelligent or artistically gifted!”   In telling me about the incident, my friend said he was obviously an exception to this trend. That’s the response I expected from him – and from you, if you have D.I.D.. People with D.I.D. tend to be so tragically hit by low self esteem that they do not presently realize how gifted they are. Though the significance of his abilities seems not to register with my friend, he is both artistic and of well above average intelligence. In fact, his childhood abuse and putdowns had squashed his artistic leanings, and befriending one of his young alters is releasing his beautiful artistic gift within him. In addition to the huge handicap of battling emotional pain and other unhealed effects of his past, his poor spelling contributed to him feeling intellectually inferior. He is actually so intelligent that in a college course he took there was a firm rule that no one with poor spelling could graduate. Those in charge were embarrassed into breaking their own rule. How could they “fail” their top student? He was so exceptional that he was tutoring his fellow students. Yet still he thought he was stupid. And if you have D.I.D., you’ll agree that he was smart but are likely to still be convinced that you are not.   Here’s an interesting sidenote: This man emailed me frequently for about a year before I discovered that he had alters. I had come to recognize his intelligence and assumed the atrocious spelling in his e-mails was due to dyslexia. A while after I encouraged him to recognize and be kind to his alters (he had previously mistaken them for demons) he began to send near-perfect e-mails. Alters that were good at spelling had surfaced.   It is not without reason that D.I.D. has been called “sophisticated” and “one of the most functional responses a child can make to a very traumatic childhood.” That is not to suggest, however, that it is desirable for people facing new crises to yield to the temptation to split yet again. Just how counterproductive splitting can be was rammed home to me when a friend of mine was learning a very stressful new job. She needed every bit of previous experience and more. Despite us not wanting it to happen, in an unconscious attempt to cope with the stress, a new alter formed. This poor alter was formed with all of the host’s years of extensive work experience wiped from her memory. Trying to cope under these circumstances greatly magnified the stress. Thankfully, little damage was done because I was able to immediately support the new alter and my friend changed jobs. Very many years before, my friend’s trauma had caused an alter to form that did not even know how to read or write. Trying to cope proved exceedingly challenging. This alter eventually relearned and developed such courage and skills that she ended up a significant help to her host. It was a very tough journey, however.   An alter e-mailed a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder who in despair had called himself a freak:   We are not freaks; we are people forced to carry burdens beyond human endurance. We were smart enough not to go insane but to split. It was the best we could do. That isn’t a freak; it’s someone being denied the help they desperately needed and resorting to extreme measures to save themselves. Would you call a shipwreck survivor who got an infection and had to chop of his own arm to save the rest of him a freak? No, you’d say, “Wow, that was brave” Well, that is what you are: brave. You hid the pain to protect yourself and did what you had to stay alive. That is brave, not freaky.   It has been estimated that between one to three percent of the general population in western countries suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. I expect it would be far higher in, for example, war-ravished countries.   The Amazing Healing Power of Dealing with Alters   A man would not only sometimes wet his bed, he found himself peculiarly reluctant to clean up afterwards. He preferred to lie in the mess. You might find this bizarre, but it was equally inexplicable to him until he discovered he had alters. After gaining the trust of one of his child alters, the alter confided that he had learnt that a wet bed was the only way to keep a family sex abuser out of his bed. Not only was the man relieved to know for the first time that there was a rational explanation for his disturbing behavior, he now had a strategy for finding a cure. He began prayerfully focusing on finding ways to convince his alter that he was now safe. He could experiment, for example, with assuring the alter than the abuser had left and that never again was he in danger of being molested in bed.   A woman decided to conquer her fear of driving by becoming a professional truck driver. After years of driving experience she had abundantly convinced herself that she was a safe and highly capable driver, and yet she still felt uncomfortable about driving. Finally, rather than remaining only vaguely aware that she had alters, she began befriending them. She discovered a child alter who, not surprisingly, had no consciousness of driving expertise gained later in life, and was scared of riding in vehicles. Empowered by this awareness of the alter’s fears, the woman was able to work towards curing the discomfort the alter felt when driving. She was able to try such things as informing the alter of her driving expertise (this proved a significant source of relief), and encouraging the alter to enter into faith-filled prayer, trusting in divine protection when traveling on the road.   A Christian woman knew the Scriptures affirming that her sins were forgiven but still she was plagued with strong guilt feelings. It turned out that her child alter had a lesser understanding of the gospel than the adult part of her. Once the child alter had the good news of God’s forgiveness more fully explained to her, the relief was remarkable.   An abuser said he would chop off a little boy’s penis. The threat was so convincing and terrifying that at that very instant an alter formed. Since, as previously explained, alters have access to only a fraction of the information that is known to the person as a whole, it is not surprising that this alter was left unaware that the threat was never carried out. The alter spent decades of needless torment until finally it was specifically explained to the alter that he had not been maimed. From then on the host enjoyed relief and no longer awoke fearing that he had been maimed.   A woman often used to walk in her sleep. She got little sleep as it was, without having a disturbed sleep. Sometimes her son would find her wandering the house. Sometimes she would wake in the morning to find things rearranged and – most frustrating of all – she would have to hunt everywhere for her keys that were not where she had left them.   One day as I was chatting with her child alter, the alter mentioned in passing that last night she had slept all night. That immediately got my attention. “What do you usually do?” I asked.   It turned out that the alter only felt safe to play without ridicule when everyone else was asleep. She particularly liked playing with keys and her host had moved her other toys away from the bed, so she had to get up to access them.   “I try not to wake Mommy (her host),” she said. “Please don’t tell her.”   I gently persuaded her that her host would not be angry and obtained her permission to let the host know. It turned out that the host had overheard part of the conversation anyhow.   The host and alter were able to work out some amicable and effective solutions. An obvious start was to keep the toys by the edge of the bed, so that the alter could play with them in bed. Better still, the host explained to the alter how they would both feel more refreshed if they slept at the same time, and the host began slotting into her waking hours a time when her alter could play in privacy. She also purchased a pocket doll for her alter to play with when she was at work. Both alter and host benefited from this new level of mutual understanding and cooperation – and enjoyed better quality sleep.   One woman was tormented by horrific flashbacks of the abuse she had suffered as a child. Then her child alter was taught that because she was a child of the King of kings, she was a princess, and since princesses must be obeyed, she had the God-given authority to command abusers, demons, and so on, to leave. Soon after, the woman was having one of her terrifying flashbacks. Suddenly the child alter rose up and told the abuser in the flashback that he must leave her because she was a princess. In her mind’s eye the abuser left and the flashback abruptly ended. Similar things happened during nightmares and demonic appearances. Not surprisingly, the woman found peace like she had never before known.   A woman used to find clothes shopping and even dressing so distressingly confusing and frustrating that she would often end up in tears over it. When she learnt about her alters, she discovered that the source of the confusion was that each alter had completely different tastes in clothes. Since they had a beautifully close relationship with God, they agreed to let God select their clothes each time they dressed or shopped. It worked.   It is not impossible for alters to believe they are the opposite sex to their host. Such alters form because of the need to feel safe, not because of homosexual tendencies. One can well understand abused children supposing that being the opposite sex would lower their chances of further abuse and so wish they were that gender. Both boys and girls have thought this and, in the case of their particular abuser, they are often right. Moreover, if children are sexually abused by a member of the same sex, it can be expected to affect their sexual identity and they might even be labeled by their abuser as being the opposite sex. It is not surprising that some alters suffering this fully take on this false identity and genuinely believe they are the oppose sex. They can have so little body awareness that they believe their actual body is fully the opposite sex to what it really is. Not surprisingly, sexual confusion results, but this can be resolved by helping them realize that there is no need for them to be of their imaginary gender in order to be safe or loved. Only after ensuring they realize that their safety and acceptance is not at stake should the actual gender of their bodies be pointed out to them. This delay is necessary because knowing their real gender is likely to be a significant shock to them, and one that would be most disturbing without the preparation just mentioned. Great care must be taken in dealing with this sensitive issue. Imagine your reaction if you were to discover that you are not the gender you had always thought you were.   With many of his alters thinking themselves to be little children – far too young for marital relations – and a few of his alters thinking they were the opposite sex, it is no wonder that a man I know often had great difficulty making love to his wife. Identifying alters, helping them to discover their true gender and helping them to mature was the key to healing his sexuality.   The above are just eight of many examples I could cite from people I know that demonstrates what a powerful key to healing it is to listen to alters and tenderly address their needs and fears. Unknown to you, a traumatized part of you could be sabotaging your eating habits, your determination to resist temptation, your will to live, your Christian walk – all sorts of things. No matter how devout and determined you are, trying to do the right thing is an oppressively hard, discouraging slog when part of you is surreptitiously sabotaging your efforts, or is unaware of key spiritual truths. Life fills with joy, peace and victory when alters are helped and every part of you knows God and is drawing upon the power of Christ.   I have found that if you treat alters as real, the breakthroughs in a person’s long term problems is phenomenal, provided you minister to each alter in the power of Christ as you would to a normal person who had suffered that way. In fact, I have never seen anything so powerful in bringing about speedy transformations in hurting people.   Christians commonly suffer the frustration of what they might call being unable to turn head knowledge into heart knowledge. Some might think of it in terms of knowing intellectually what should be a life-changing spiritual truth and yet the knowledge does not set them free because their “subconscious” has not grasped it. Speaking to alters enables one to minister directly to that “subconscious,” normally unreachable part of the person; achieving in minutes what might otherwise take years. It’s nothing like hypnosis. It is simply enabling people to liberate a suppressed part of them that, through being kept ignorant of certain truths, had been surreptitiously undermining their well-being.   Humans can concoct a hundred theories as to the best way to treat anything, but any scientist will tell you that going by one’s personal experience with treating people is a very unreliable way of proving which treatment is the most effective.   Like any Christian, I try to be led of God in the way I minister to people. Unlike some, however, I seem unable to hear God speaking directly to me. I’m embarrassed to admit that I usually seem able to do little better than just pray and hope for the best. As I have continued ministering to alters, however, I have been staggered to note how exactly the way God ministers to alters coincides with the way I have felt led to do it.   No matter how many human theories there are, I want to imitate God’s approach, since he knows infinitely more than any of us as to what is truly best. The apostle Paul displayed this attitude of seeking to imitate God:     1 Corinthians 11:1  Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.    And Christ himself had this same attitude:   John 5:19  . . . I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.   As is the case with belief in demons, or opinions about the most appropriate treatment for a specific disease, or almost anything else in the world, there is a wide range of theories about Dissociative Identity Disorder and whether it even exists. One reason for the confusion is that alters, having suffered devastating levels of rejection in the past, are highly sensitive and will go into hiding in the presence of anyone they fear could reject them (including a counselor, researcher or even the host person). If anyone were to convince a host that alters are not real and that the host should reject as an illusion any manifestation of an alter, alters would panic and quickly go into hiding, rather than risk rejection. At the apparent disappearance of alters, the host will temporarily feel relief, rather like the cruel relief felt by a cancer patient wrongly declared to be cancer-free. It will seem like a magical cure, but the person’s underlying problems will remain and his/her true relief will be greatly hampered.   Someone might possibly reach the point where he or she is enabling continued dissociation. For example, child alters can be so cute that it is tempting to hold on to them by hindering them from maturing. At least in early counseling or relating to alters, however, it seems to me best to ensure one has thoroughly ministered to each alter, rather than frantically rush into trying to get the alters fused into one person. Like being opened up by a surgeon, treating alters as individuals makes wounded parts accessible for treatment. It would be foolish for a surgeon to sew up a person while there are still inner parts that need attention.   Moreover, people with Dissociative Identity Disorder have been cruelly robbed of the childhood they deserve. Having childlike alters who are relieved of their pain provides these deserving people the privilege of re-living childhood for a while as it was meant to have been enjoyed. Yes, there is a time to move on, but there is also a time to enjoy. In fact, one host who was continually frustrated over what to him seemed the slow rate of healing, actually felt guilty about enjoying legitimate pleasures. This false guilt, quite typical of people suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, was the product of his abusive upbringing in which he was usually punished for acting like a normal fun-loving child. He found it wonderfully liberating to discover that God delighted in him catching up on missed childhood pleasures by enjoying them now, even though he was an adult. Ironically, his frustration at not integrating sooner was actually slowing his healing because he would keep suppressing (and so hurting) alters who wanted to play.   Another reason for not trying to force the pace is that the very thought of being united can initially be traumatic for alters because it could be misinterpreted as an attempt to annihilate them. When the matter is treated gently, however, alters can be encouraged to see union as a maturing and as a marriage in which two (or more) truly are better than one and no one loses his or her identity but each contributes his or her own strengths and retains his or her own memories and benefits from the other’s strengths. Like marriage, it should be a union in which partners are so self-assured that they feel no need to keep asserting their independence. One alter described it as becoming more alive than ever. It is very fulfilling. The decision is up to each individual alter, however. Moreover, what is often the first stage towards merging – alters learning to value each other and work together as a team – is far more important than merging.   Discerning Between Demons & Multiple Personalities   In an attempt to keep secret their crime, abusers with occult knowledge sometimes deliberately transfer a demon to their victims to keep alters too terrorized reveal themselves and the abuse they suffered. Even when this occurs, it might not apply to all the alters a person has. For example, once a person learns how to split, further splits could occur in response to new traumas after the original abuser has left. Of course, if any alters are suppressed by demons, those alters are free to reveal themselves once the demons are ejected.   Even though the above was not the specific reason, I know several people who discovered they have alters only after being delivered from demons. Not only are alters not demons, however, confusing them with demons could prove disastrous. Nevertheless, we are about to see that, especially with some alters, many things make them disturbingly easy to mistake for demons. The three main reasons are that before alters begin to heal:   1.     Some can seem evil   2.     They can give themselves bizarre names    3.     They themselves can be confused about their identity.   Let’s explore this.   Why Alters Can Seem Evil   Early contact with an alter is likely to be unpleasant because this is when an alter is most raw and hurting. Some alters even choose to test whether they will be rejected by deliberately acting offensive in their initial contact. Others can do nasty things in a frantic attempt simply to break out of their isolation and get their host to listen to them. An alter once seemed to try to seduce me. She later admitted that she had observed my moral standards with her host before she revealed herself and she was actually trying to offend me by her apparent seduction because she expected that I’d reject her and she thought she might as well get the rejection over with. On the other hand, great integrity is needed when relating to alters because they can be so desperate for love and approval as to be tempted to do almost anything to obtain it.   We have noted that when alters first make their presence felt they are likely to have been cut off from many years of developments in their hosts’ life. Alters that formed before a person became a Christian or when the person was backslidden are therefore likely to have been cut off from exposure to the Gospel and know nothing of a living relationship with Christ. So we can expect them to act like non-Christians. Moreover, alters have suffered almost beyond the realms of human endurance. So it should not surprise if, in their attempt to cope with severe suffering, they gained an undesirable addiction, or are filled with hate or rage because they misinterpreted their misfortune as abandonment by God, or they use strong language to forcefully express their pain or pent up anger and frustration.   Bizarre Names   Any of the factors so far mentioned are enough for alters to act in a manner that is out of character for the host person, as he/she is today, and for such alters to superficially seem demonic. Even more confusing is that alters can give themselves names that anyone not experienced with alters might assume would be the exclusive domain of demons. In the webpages you are reading, almost all the Spirit-inspired quotes from an alter are from one who originally called herself “Reject.” A sister alter called herself “Pain,” another, “Failure,” and another, who felt so rejected by God that she wanted to set herself up as her own god called herself “Divinity.” I have yet to come across alters that that assume the name “Evil” or “Devil,” but such names seem quite likely, given the strong tendency of abusers to keep authoritatively telling their young, impressionable victims that they are evil.   Alters Confused About Their Own Identity   In the battle not to mistake an alter for a demon, it is confusing enough finding alters who hate God, act in nasty ways that for the host person is out of character, and give themselves bizarre names, but it is made even worse by many alters doubting or denying their humanity.   It is common for alters to yearn to be human but to have doubts about whether they really are. Part of this is because they were formed as a result of abuse in which they were treated as objects, rather than as humans who had feelings and a will of their own. Also, to dull their pain, many alters have blocked off almost all feeling and this can make them feel less than human.   On the other hand, some alters do not want to be human. One alter who kept telling me she was not human revealed that she did not want to be human because humans feel (and are thus exposed to feeling pain) and humans must cope with their sexuality (she feared she was gay and in any case, to her, sex meant abuse). She added that if she were human she would have to relate to other humans and so be exposed to the possibility of rejection. Ironically, this alter was highly offended by the thought of anyone mistaking her for a demon, and unlike demons, who like living in human bodies, she wanted to leave earth completely and live in her imaginary spaceship.   We must remember that fantasy can be a powerful way of escaping an intolerable reality and that children are both highly imaginative and impressionable.   It would be easy to mistake for a demon an alter who kept insisting he was a dog. I have spoken to such an alter. The man with this alter was traumatized as a child by being sexually molested by a dog. The alter hated what had happened and concluded that only a dog could be treated that way.   On a more positive side, when we consider children’s love of animals and the peaceful lives that animals often seem to have, it should not surprise us that in a desperate attempt to feel safe and escape the reality of their suffering, some alters might choose to convince themselves that they are animals. And given the alienation that abused children often feel, or their longing to escape human suffering, some might choose to convince themselves that they are aliens, fairies, monsters or some other mythical being.   Recently, an alter told me of a brother alter who believed he was a bear. As is common for recently surfaced alters, Bear, as he called himself, was too shy to speak, but was listening. So I began gently speaking to him. I had assumed he had chosen to believe he was a bear to help himself feel safe, since few people would dare mess with a grizzly bear. After I spoke to him along those lines for a few moments he interrupted, saying that he was not an animal but was a tattered teddy bear, because, he said, “stuffed toys can’t feel.” (It is common for hurting alters to feel disconnected from their feelings and, of course, anyone who is hurting would prefer to feel unable to feel pain.)   Although in seeking comfort, certain alters might assume a false identity, their suffering and memories are real.   In the light of what we have so far discovered, it is not hard to conceive of some alters mistakenly supposing they are demons. A common reason is the low self-esteem of alters coupled with the fact that abusers often do their utmost to brainwash their victims into thinking that these innocents are “evil,” or “of the devil.” I have also heard of one alter formed in exceptional circumstances who thought he was a demon. In this case, abusers were trying to plant a real demon in the person, and having an alter capable of giving a convincing impression of a demon having been successfully planted was a clever way of foiling the abusers’ evil intention.   These exceptions aside, however, alters usually appear as human, whereas demons only sometimes pretend to be human. Demons are external beings that might enter a person and mess with one’s mind but they are no more part of the person than a leech is.   Despite it being easy to mistake some alters for demons, alters could no more be cast out than anyone’s past experiences and memories could be cast out. And because every alter has deep feelings and sensitivities and is as much a person as the host is, how an alter is treated is critical. You cannot drive alters  out , but you can drive alters  in ; forcing them deeper into a person, where they hide, reeling in the pain of being grossly misunderstood, and unwilling to risk further contact with people – even with people who have great potential to help.   Usually within just a few days of contact with a loving, accepting person, an alter will begin to heal and feel more peace and so become increasingly delightful to converse with. Even alters that initially seem obnoxious can quickly become devoted, Spirit-filled Christians, deeply in love with Jesus, and highly moral. Tragically, however, some counselors or hosts can be so hasty in misjudging alters as demons that alters withdraw in terror before these self-proclaimed experts or hosts have a chance to truly interact with them and discover how loving, spiritually enlightened and authentically Christian, alters can become.   It would be upsetting enough for someone to believe you  have  a demon, but consider how offended would you feel were someone to believe you  are  a demon! To further understand why alters panic and go into deep hiding if labeled supernaturally evil (demonic), it is critical to keep in mind – it will become even clearer as you keep reading – that alters are usually already hurting immensely and highly sensitive to perceived rejection, and fear that their former abusers’ slanderous insults that they are evil and worthless might be true. Even worse, counselors who fail to distinguish between demons and alters slip into the delusion that an alter falling into gut-wrenching silence means they have cast out a demon, thus inspiring these well-meaning but tragically mistaken “helpers” to continue their reign of terror on other innocent victims.   Counselors who don’t even believe in demons but refuse to accept the reality of alters can have a similar, dangerously negative effect.   Caution   If alters began to make their presence felt in you, fears, feelings and battles with temptation would probably resurface that you had thought you were over, but had actually been plaguing you for years in less obvious ways and for reasons you couldn’t identify. To the untrained person, this reactivation of unpleasant feelings and ungodly desires might seem undesirable but in reality it is the best thing that could ever happen. It is like a person finally discovering the cause of the poor health he has endured for years, and learning that through surgery he can enjoy health like he has never before known. Ignorance might seem like bliss because it delays the pain of surgery but it is actually a curse because it keeps the person below full health.   An inner voice was making all sorts of false accusations against Alice. By this time, Alice and I had had considerable experience with alters. Not only was this voice not one of her twenty-five alters that we had identified, it seemed quite different to any alter we had ever encountered. In fact, no new alters had surfaced in Alice for quite some time and we expected that there were no more. Along with some of Alice’s discerning alters, I was fairly sure that the source of this hate and false accusations was a demon. Nevertheless, I decided to be cautious. Rather than aggressively rebuke it as a demon, I compromised by gently affirming that Alice belonged to Jesus, and that because she had his righteousness, no accusations applied to her.   Although I affirmed the truth, I wondered if I were being a wimp for not getting more aggressive. The voice, however, soon turned out to be an alter who said she hated both God and Alice and sometimes wanted to kill people. (This was just because she was deeply hurting.) She called herself Accused because she had taken on board all the false accusations that had been hurled at her. In fact, she was so sensitive that she sometimes took even innocent remarks as accusations.   Even though I had been unaware of this alter, she had become aware of me and thought warmly towards me. Imagine the damage I would have caused had I added to this alter’s near-suicidal state by falsely accusing her of being demonic. Because I didn’t make that mistake, the alter quickly healed. She discovered that God loved her and all her hate and bitterness left.   It should be becoming progressively clearer to the reader why in the early stages of dealing with an alter – when it has had little chance to heal – it is tempting to despise the alter. Rather than joyfully embrace the healing opportunity, we can react like a sick person who thinks he would prefer the illness he is familiar with, over the unknown pain and dangers of surgery. Naturally, while a person is recovering from surgery he may temporarily feel worse than ever, but now, for the first time, full healing is on its way. People with alters have the same assurance that, despite initial discomfort, things will get better when they let Jesus minister to their alters.   To best understand D.I.D. you should keep reading. If ever a little knowledge were dangerous, it is on this important subject. There is so much more you need to know, so please proceed to the  NEXT PAGE .

Unforgivable Sin or Just a Spiritual Attack?   Proof of Demon Possession or Mere Temptation? A mother of two told me:   Up until about a week ago, I was great! I was strong in my faith, and things were going well when one day I suddenly awoke from sleep to a thought so horrible I was in a sweat, my heart was thumping and ever since, I have been in extreme anxiety. I had thought for an instant about the verse on Jesus being a demon, and I had imagined it being so. I am a Christian so I know the thought is utterly false, but I am so mortified that I can’t get rid of thought. The more I try to stop it, the more it comes back.   I am in turmoil! The passage about the unforgivable sin makes me so afraid, that now I am a mess. That horrible thought keeps creeping back and I want it to go away. I keep telling Jesus that I am sorry, and powerless to get rid of this false image of him. It is like living in hell. Please help me!   So common is it to be tormented in this way that this dear woman has nothing to be embarrassed about. Nevertheless, rather than risk causing her the slightest discomfort I will conceal anything that might identify her. We’ll call her Kate.   Few of us regularly have a demon appear before us and start talking to us. And yet we have all had evil spiritual powers trying to tempt us. Since they rarely speak to us in an audible voice, how do they tempt us? By putting thoughts in our minds – thoughts that seem like our own but are from them.   Churning around in our mind are not just our own thoughts but the occasional thought direct from God and the occasional thought direct from God’s spiritual enemies. It is not unusual for God to put thoughts and ideas into our minds that we mistake for our own thoughts. Likewise, it is common for us to mistake as our own thoughts things whispered into our minds from spiritual powers that hate us and hate our Lord.   Kate was so upset by those blasphemous thoughts because such blasphemy is disturbingly contrary to her own views of Christ. To a casual observer it is obvious that thoughts so contrary to her own thinking could not be her thoughts. Because they were happening in her very mind, however, it was hard for her to be convinced they did not originate from her. She was experiencing a hideous invasion by evil powers of the most intimate part of her – her innermost thoughts. It is such a terrible violation of her person that I refer to it as spiritual rape. Every Christian – even Jesus, who was tempted in all ways like us when on earth – suffers this.   “Where’s the Scriptural proof?” you might ask.   Matthew 4:5  Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.   Who, according to this Scripture, took the holy Son of God to the top of the temple? It wasn’t Jesus’ doing, nor was it God’s.   Matthew 4:8  Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.   Everyone knows there is no mountain in the world from which one’s natural eyes can see “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” The devil not only somehow managed to get Jesus’ body where he wanted it to be, he thrust a vision into Christ’s very mind. If the devil slipped that into the very mind of the sinless Son of God, we can expect no less. No Christian wants it, but it is normal. In fact, it is inevitable. Nevertheless, despite the repulsive violation, we, like Jesus, can remain pure.   Unlike God, the devil can only be in one place at a time. So in our case, we are almost certainly attacked by one of the devil’s henchmen, rather than the devil himself, but it makes little difference and so most Christians, myself included, often refer to him when it is technically one of his subordinates who actually does it.   Up until the night of Kate’s disturbing experience, everything had been going well for her. Obviously the Enemy of our souls hates that. He’d love to bring us down. Because he had failed to seduce Kate into genuine sin, the old Deceiver tried to fool her into taking responsibility for the devil’s own filthy thoughts.   The sneak attack began when Kate was most vulnerable. How dare he start his ambush when she was asleep! Most attacks occur when we least expect it and least deserve it. It’s not for nothing that our enemy is called the Evil One. He plays dirty.   Kate knew that the lies speared into her head were not true. That knowledge is all she needs to maintain her spiritual purity. No matter what floods her mind, she is spiritually safe because she believes the truth about Jesus.   Nevertheless, “mortified” is how Kate described her reaction to the haunting devastation of being plagued by thoughts she wanted nothing to do with. Examined in the cold light of day, however, it is not the slightest surprising she couldn’t get those hideous thoughts out of her mind. If Kate had woken up to find a deadly snake in her bed, she might escape unharmed but the experience would have terrorized her, just like the thought she had woken up with terrorized her.   Had Kate escaped a snake in her bed, she would have been safe. The experience might have lasted just a couple of seconds. Nevertheless, it would have so shaken her that to her dying day it is unlikely she would ever forget it. For the first few weeks the memory would rarely leave her. The vivid, recurring memories would be most unwanted, but a perfectly natural reaction to a traumatic experience.   Similarly, Kate was experiencing a natural reaction to the trauma of waking to thoughts that shocked and repulsed her because they were so contrary to her heart-attitude to Jesus. Her reaction, in fact, was proof of her sincere devotion to Christ.   Kate couldn’t remove the thoughts from her mind. “The more I try, the more it comes back,” she agonized. Large numbers of people write to me with similar stories. I have found that they are usually very sensitive people who are deeply shocked and disturbed by having such a thought, and their very reaction seems to inflame the situation. This, in fact, is exactly what one would expect.   Try telling yourself, “Whatever I do, I must not think of elephants in polka dot pajamas.” The very act of trying not to think of them will cause you to think of them. The more I raise the stakes – such as threatening to beat you if you think of them – the more you will be plagued by thoughts of pajamas-clad elephants. One’s very anxiety about it and desperation not to think of them will increase the problem.   It’s like walking on a plank that is lying on the ground. You do it effortless and perfectly. The higher off the ground you raise it, however, the more fear of falling will begin to grip you. The more nervous you become, the more likely it is that your very nervousness will make you unsteady and cause you to fall. So it is that the more you fear thinking something blasphemous, the more likely it is to happen. That’s not for any spiritual reason. It’s purely psychological – a perfectly normal mental reaction. On the other hand, the less concerned you are about the thought and the more you ignore it and focus on other things, the more it will fade from your thoughts.   Why did God make the human mind this way? It’s because thoughts that flit through our mind are of no concern to God. What matters to him is not random thoughts but what will firmly decide to believe.   It is astounding how high a proportion of those who e-mail me fearing that they have committed the unpardonable sin suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), or some other psychological difficulty. This shows that in most cases, uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts are not a theological matter or even a spiritual one, but the product of a psychological condition that is not only most unpleasant, but exceedingly unfair. Ironically, the more anxious one is to please God, the more severe the affliction.   Fearing that God will not forgive us is like fearing a harmless spider. The fear is awful but it is groundless. Someone with a phobia about spiders does not need to be lectured about trusting God and made to feel spiritually inferior. It is simply a most unpleasant, irrational fear for which there is no shame in seeking psychological help. Many Christians plagued with the irrational fear of being unforgivable are suffering from psychological problems that medication might help. Medication can’t save anyone’s soul; only Jesus can. But medication has the potential to stop some Christians from suffering needless torment. Whether it be a fear of harmless creatures, or a fear that God has suddenly turned unforgiving, if medication can ease the fear and help one act more rationally, I’m all for it.   Medication is far from perfect. For a few people it can have side-effects and what works well for one person might not be as effective for another. If you are among the majority whose body tolerates it, however, and it helps you think more rationally about spiritual things – and so helps you cling to the biblical truth that all sin is forgivable through simple faith in the power of Christ sacrifice – then I see such medication as a plus.   In theory – I know that in practice it is difficult – Kate should try to be as unconcerned as she can about the repulsive thoughts buzzing around in her mind. Like someone swearing in her presence, it is unpleasant but it is not her doing. Those thoughts are the devil’s doing, not Kate’s. She can simply ignore them and let the devil take the blame for them. None of us will ever stop the devil and his horde from being evil, so we can just let them do their thing and focus on glorifying our Lord.   When you find yourself suffering like Kate, my suggestion is that you go on the offensive and hit the Enemy where it hurts him most. Whenever a lying thought about Jesus comes to you, turn it into an occasion to praise Jesus, thanking him that he is the holy Son of God; pure and sinless. Keep exalting Jesus until the blasphemous thought eventually leaves. Every time the thought returns, rejoice in the purity, perfection, and divine power of your Lord, affirming his goodness in praise-filled prayer. Then, no matter what heretical things flash through your mind, every lie fired into your head turns into an invitation to exalt Jesus and build up your faith in his righteousness. However, you most exalt Christ, not by turning this into an obsessive ritual, but by relaxing and enjoying the fact that through Christ you are forgiven, no matter what unwanted thoughts plague you.   Let’s return to the analogy of finding a snake in one’s bed. If it turns out to be merely a toy, it would be far easier to be rid of the recurring memories. The greater the perceived danger, the harder it is to get it out of one’s mind. Kate’s fear that she was committing the unpardonable sin was adding to the trauma and so helping to perpetuate the recurring thoughts. Her fear was yet another dirty trick from the Evil One. She was  not  committing the unpardonable sin. Despite uninvited thoughts clouding her mind, she did not genuinely believe that Jesus was of the devil. And even if someone had actually believed that in the past, it wouldn’t matter, provided that person no longer believes it. For as long as a person believes Jesus is of the devil, that person’s sin cannot be forgiven since he or she would not ask for God’s forgiveness in the name of someone he/she believes to be of the devil! If that person changes his/her attitude to Jesus, however, forgiveness again becomes fully accessible.   Jesus was tempted with horrific things – even to bow down and worship Satan. So let’s not despise ourselves if we, too, face horrific temptations. They indicate how evil our enemy is; they do nothing to suggest that we are ungodly. We don’t have to own the thoughts that come to us, nor be disturbed by them. We can simply reject them as being untrue and continue to enjoy closeness with our loving Lord.   There are surprising medical factors influencing devastating guilt feelings and sacrilegious mental images or thoughts. As you follow these pages, we will soon examine this. Later, we will explore a wide range of testimonies. But first I should raise another matter that could be nagging away at you.   Bringing into Captivity Every Thought?   The frustrating, unavoidable reality is that the very act of  not  thinking about something forces us to direct our thoughts to those very matters, thus ensuring we are spending more time than ever thinking the thought we are desperately trying not to think. It becomes a no-win situation because it is contrary to the fundamental design of the human brain. Everyone’s experience confirms that to cease thinking something we are desperately trying to stop thinking is as impossible as it is to stop  all  thought.   A man was keen to accept this fact of life and cease trying to do the impossible. However, the most common reason for being hounded by unwanted thoughts is anxiety stemming not from a rational concern but from an imbalance in one’s body chemistry. Since no amount of rational understanding of the cause of unwanted thoughts can change one’s body chemistry, he kept feeling anxious. More disturbing still, anxiety feels like a nagging conscience and can easily be mistaken for a divine warning that one is somehow displeasing God. This anxiety kept driving his restless mind to find some sort of rational basis for his irrational anxiety – some indication that he might be doing something displeasing to God. Not surprisingly, his mind latched on to worrying that even though fighting the thoughts inflamed them, not fighting them might be at odds with 2 Corinthians 10:5, “. . .  bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,” (KJV). He emailed me about his nagging concern about this Scripture. I quickly replied:   This verse does not mean to try not to think about compulsive thoughts because that is impossible and anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand the human mind and has not suffered from this affliction. What it means is, rather than trying to battle the thoughts yourself, entrust them to Christ, your Savior who has demolished everything that could separate us from God. He is your Savior, so let the thoughts be his concern, not yours. Refuse to worry about the thoughts but trust your Savior to keep you cleansed and acceptable to God, no matter how you feel.   In practical terms, what I wrote was entirely correct. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that the verse about making every thought captive is not even relevant to a discussion of intrusive thoughts. It has nothing to do with casual thoughts but is referring to attacking various belief systems adhered to by non-Christians thinkers (philosophers, religious teachers, cults and so on).   Hailed as “one of the best evangelical New Testament scholars” (D. Stewart) and elsewhere called “master New Testament exegete,”  Murray J. Harris  specifically says in this commentary on 2 Corinthians 10:5, “ It is not a case of the Christian’s effort to force all his thoughts to be pleasing to Christ. ”   The most confusing thing about King James English is not obviously archaic words but ones that seem the same as modern words but have actually undergone a change of meaning. For example, in the King James Version  conversation  can mean not just speech but one’s entire behavior, even though few readers today are aware of this shift in meaning. The full verse, of which we have quoted just a slither, uses the word  imaginations  in the King James Version. Back then, however, the word had a different meaning (it could mean stubbornness, or plotting or devising evil) and later translations (even, as quoted in a subsequent webpage, the New King James Version and the King James 2000 Bible) use a different word.   Consistent with this, the word translated  thought  is not used in this verse to mean imagination or casual thought. It is referring not to things that pop unbidden into the mind but to an entire system of thinking – a whole manner of thinking about spiritual matters, such as consistently thinking of (i.e. viewing or perceiving) God as an assortment of many different gods (pantheism) or consistently seeing salvation as dependent upon animal sacrifices. It is referring not to fleeting or superficial thoughts that one hardly believes, but to mindsets – deliberate thoughts and ways of seeing things that are so consistently believed that they transform one’s understanding of spiritual truth.   The precise meaning of the Greek word translated  thought  in 2 Corinthians 10:5 is hard to express in English. The difficulty is that there are different types of thought, and English speakers are not used to differentiating between them when they communicate. There are fleeting, flippant, frenzied thoughts that come out of the blue and not from one’s solid convictions. On the other extreme, certain thoughts are the product of deep, deliberate, focused thinking and match fully and precisely what one really, firmly believes. The word used in 2 Corinthians 10:5 refers to this second type of thought. It refers to one’s powers of thought in using logic and reasoning – not to wandering, scatterbrain thoughts, but to carefully thought through conclusions.   The Greek word is  noema . HELPSTM Word-studies defines it as “the  mind , especially its  final output  (systematic understanding . . .)” It rightly notes  noema  as being derived from  noieo  and it defines the latter as meaning, “to apply  mental  effort needed to reach ‘bottom-line’ conclusions.”   The word is relatively rare in the New Testament. Besides 2 Corinthians 10:5, it is used only five times and only one of these is outside of 2 Corinthians. In no instance except 2 Corinthians 10:5 is it translated  thought , and the following occurrence is particularly illuminating as it highlights how it is the product of careful, deliberate, methodical thought:   2 Corinthians 2:11  in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his  schemes .  (NIV)   2 Corinthians 2:11  Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his  devices .  (KJV) (Emphasis mine.)   Not surprisingly, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines it as “(an evil) purpose” and, specifically in reference to 2 Corinthians 10:5, says it is “devising evil against Christ”. Note the choice of words:  devising  implies meticulous planning, not something that comes unbidden or unwanted into the mind. “ Purpose,  in a bad sense  design, plot ,” says the highly regarded  A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature  by Arndt & Gingrich, about both 2 Corinthians 2:11 and 10:5.   The scholarly  New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology  (Vol 3, p 128) makes crystal clear just how far  noema  is from referring to fleeting thoughts. It defines the New Testament meaning of the word as “ . . . the understanding of the divine will concerning salvation, the thinking concerned with this. . . .  noema  is thus the general faculty of judgment, which can take decisions and pronounce verdicts right or wrong . . .”   Furthermore, this portion of Scripture uses war terminology, describing the “war” between Christian and anti-Christian ideologies. In this context,  captivity  refers not to total control of individual or fleeting thoughts but to the defeat of an enemy by taking prisoners of war. And in this case the enemy is the belief systems (the thought patterns and entire way of thinking about spiritual matters) adhered to by anti-Christian philosophies and cults. As made more obvious by some Bible versions, but implied elsewhere, an analysis of the verse reveals that it is not even about  your  viewpoint, mindset, and so on, but  about that of your spiritual enemies . The New Living Translation makes this abundantly clear:   We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture  their  rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. (Emphasis mine.)   So “bringing into captivity every thought” is not about an impossibly unhuman, machine-like control of one’s mind, but the spiritual defeat of belief systems present in the non-Christian world that are opposed to the gospel message.   A correct understanding of this verse is aided by consulting the context:   2 Corinthians 10:3-5   . . . we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.   And it is confirmed by seeing how this dovetails with what the apostle Paul told the Corinthians earlier:   1 Corinthians 1:17-24; 2:1-2  For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. . . . When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.   God declares through the pen of Paul that there is a spiritual war between the gospel and people who suppose they can connect with God without reliance upon what Christ achieved on the cross. The way to win that war (figuratively speaking, destroy defenses – pull down strongholds – and take prisoners of war – captives) is not through using the means (weapons) that opponents of the gospel rely on – human reason (in the case of Greeks) or expecting supernatural signs and wonders (in the case of Jews) – but through simply preaching (declaring the truth) about the reconciliation between God and humanity that Jesus achieved through his sacrificial death.   To those who look to supernatural signs or human reasoning to confirm spiritual truth, the gospel message (the message of the cross) seems weak and foolish but those who abandon trying to confirm spiritual truth this way and instead choose to believe (put their faith in) the message of the cross (Christ securing our full acceptance with God – the forgiveness of all our sins – through his death) will be saved and they will connect with the genuine power and wisdom of God.   In other words, we win this spiritual war and connect with God not by discovering some convincing argument, nor by some supernatural sign confirming that we are saved but by clinging to faith in the power of Jesus to secure the forgiveness of all our sin. Trying to wrestle unwanted thoughts into submission is carnal and will ultimately fail; clinging to faith in the power of the cross to forgive all sin is spiritual, and where godly power lies.   Burn this into your brain:  You must cease trying to stop repulsive, ungodly thoughts . Fighting thoughts is as carnal and as opposed to God’s holy ways as trying to physically kill people who hate Christ. Supposing we can gain God’s approval by thinking nothing but pure thoughts is as heretical as abandoning faith in Christ and supposing we can be saved by works.   We must put an end to carnal methods – fear, mental effort, fighting thoughts – and become spiritual. That means relinquishing faith in our own efforts and trusting Christ alone. We overcome not by fearing thoughts, nor by fighting them, but by faith alone – by resting in the fact that on the cross Christ has completed everything necessary to secure our salvation.   To be spiritual is to look not to one’s thought life but to Christ alone. The more messed up our thought life is, the better, in that it forces us to realize we can only be saved by faith in Christ, not by our works.   All your prayers and efforts to stop unwanted thoughts have failed and will always fail, because the only way to please God is by faith in what Christ achieved on the cross without your prayers and effort.   It is unhuman never to have unwanted thoughts, just as it is not human never to suffer temptation (even the holy Son of God was tempted). This, of course, does not render it impossible for the omnipotent Lord to make you the world’s only exception and keep preventing unwanted thoughts in your case. Likewise, if you were literally afraid of your own shadow, the God for whom nothing is impossible has the power needed to treat you as if you were hopelessly pathetic by perpetually performing the miracle of preventing your shadow from ever appearing. Wouldn’t it be better, however, for God to allow you to be normal so that you can eventually overcome your ridiculous fear? Wouldn’t that end up giving you greater dignity? So it is with those who fear thoughts.   Thoughts are not your enemy; your enemy is the ever-present temptation to exalt thoughts above Christ – to imagine that overcoming thoughts will please God. Trusting what Christ did on the cross is the only way to please the Holy Lord.   Whenever you worry about thoughts, you have slipped from faith and reverted to a dangerously non-Christian works-based theology. Every time that happens, pull yourself back to faith by thanking God for your salvation that was secured solely by Christ crucified. It is essential to keep returning to faith, which means ceasing to fight thoughts and resting in Christ’s completed work.   What makes this simple thing so hard is that anyone worried about thoughts has become addicted to fear and to human effort. And addicts are repeatedly tempted to return to their old coping mechanism, which will never deliver what they actually need. Instead of continually slipping back into the old rut, forge a new path by leaving behind your preoccupation with thoughts and instead delighting in the salvation that – regardless of whether you feel it or not – is yours through Christ alone.   For people addicted to the futile hope of trying to control their thoughts, this is such a radical change that few of them grasp it. As one final attempt to help you understand what anxiety-driven people typically fail to grasp, let me share my response to another e-mail I received. The email read:   About a year ago I was flooded with unimaginable blasphemous thoughts and felt doomed. But then I read your webpage and it helped me a great deal. But now, a year later, I am being attacked by more blasphemous thoughts. I start thinking of them on my own because I know that they are lurking somewhere in my mind and I feel like I just want to get it over with. I feel like I am going to be rejected by Jesus because of this and I am so afraid. It has put my life on pause because I feel like I am going to be left behind and that terrifies me. These thoughts are things I see in my mind and they sicken me. I can’t think of Jesus without seeing something blasphemous. Please could you help me to stop this?   This is typical of many e-mails I receive and shows that the person had failed to take on board what I keep stressing in my webpages. My goal – and I believe God’s goal – is  not  to stop blasphemous thoughts but to build faith in the power of the cross to forgive  all  sin and keep us holy in God’s eyes. Upon reading that he was again having blasphemous thoughts, I wrote:   Wonderful! This is your opportunity to finally grasp what salvation is really about and abandon the heresy of salvation by works.   My response to his plea to help him stop these thoughts was:   I dare not! Allowing the existence of these awful thoughts is God’s precious gift to you, so that you will finally learn to live by faith in Christ.   I am not in any way saying we should sin so that grace will abound (compare Romans 6:1-2). I am saying, replace fear with faith and stop trying to save yourself. Salvation depends on Christ’s efforts, not your efforts. So get your attention off yourself and on to your Savior.   Thoughts do not faze God. His concern is that we keep trusting in the power of the cross. Our thought life does not save us; Christ does. Neither will our thought life condemn us to hell. The only thing that will do that is to die refusing to have faith in the power of Christ’s sacrifice to cleanse us.   The frustrating problem I face in explaining the meaning of “bringing into captivity every thought,” is that no amount of convincing proof can ever fully put to rest the mind of anyone worried about this. This is because the very nature of the affliction that causes intrusive thoughts is to suffer perpetual unease and worry. No matter how certain something is, people suffering an anxiety disorder will keep feeling anxious and so will find themselves unable to stop worrying about it.   Anxiety driven by an imbalance in one’s body chemistry will ultimately remain untouched by rational argument. For psychological reasons, worry might temporarily ease in response to rational proof but the anxiety will soon return. Other than find a medical solution, its victims have no alternative but to learn to live with their anxiety and refuse to believe that its presence means there is a legitimate reason for concern. In other words, as the Scriptures affirm, they have to cease trying to find some convincing argument or supernatural sign, and take it by raw faith that despite their awful thoughts and worries they are cleansed through the blood of Jesus.

God's Measure of Success   Help When You Feel You’ve Failed     If failure has piled upon failure until you feel utterly useless, I not only can identify with you, I have discovered that we are in exalted company. The following is some of the encouragement I have gleaned from my favorite book,  Waiting for Your Ministry  (also available in audio form). I spent over ten years writing it while trying to crawl out of the cesspit of utter despair. I so often quote from this book that you might have already discovered some quotes elsewhere but unless you have read the entire book, some of the following will be new to you and if you are discouraged, I’m convinced you need to read it. You will find compassion, humor, entertainment, insight, but above all, encouragement and a way forward.   Reeling in Shame   When his wife was pregnant with their only child, the world renowned Eighteenth Century Evangelist, George Whitefield knew he had heard from God: it would be a boy and this son would become a great evangelist. Newspapers grabbed the story and mocked. Whitefield was unmoved. The whole world could laugh; time would vindicate him. Finally the baby was born. A boy. It died.   Doug Hunt, chief pilot for Wycliffe Bible Translators – dead. Dr. Darlene Bee, brilliant linguist and Bible translator – dead. In all, seven mangled corpses lay strew amongst the aircraft wreckage. All because a missionary-mechanic neglected to tighten a nut.   ‘The funeral was a ghastly ordeal,’ confessed the shattered mechanic. ‘The sight of those caskets lined up . . .  hit me like a blow to the stomach. I wanted nothing but to get out of there . . . . How could I face my friends? How could I face myself?’   Anyone who can keep going after that is not a negligent mechanic. He’s a spiritual giant.   ‘Except for God’s grace,’ he later wrote, ‘I’d be somewhere cowering in a corner in guilt-ridden despair – the eighth fatality of that Aztec crash.   From Crushing Defeat to Eternal Fame   We find him lurking in the shadows of Scripture. He was a breath of fresh air in a whirlwind. John Mark was bad news. In the human race he led the field from go to woe. He has often been identified with Christianity’s first streaker – the man who blurred through Gethsemane’s garden with the raw grace of a plucked chicken, leaving behind his clothes and his Savior. (Mark 14:51-52) More humiliations were to follow.   His unflattering nickname, stub-fingered, suggests he was physically impaired. To this he added a handicap of his own making: he was branded a deserter – a second time.   When the pressure mounts, the last thing you need is for a trusted companion to abandon you. That’s what Mark did to Paul and Barnabas.   His desertion seems to have deeply hurt Paul. The apostle was adamant that hanging out with this dodo was a no-no. Barnabas, who always stood up for the under-dog, (Acts 4:36; 9:26-28; 11:22-25) defended his cousin Mark. The result was a rift between old friends; the shattering of a great missionary team. (Acts 15:37-39) We never hear of Barnabas again.   One look at ‘stump-finger’s’ yellow face and you knew this jinx had had mistake and eggs for breakfast again. Whenever this egg-head cracked, everyone got egg on their face. Just what the church needs! He must have felt as blue as a browned off white man seeing red because he’s accused of being yellow.   Mark could have drowned in self-pity. He could have resented Paul. He could have turned back to Judaism. Instead, he redoubled his efforts, eventually being recognized even by Paul as having an outstanding ministry. (2 Timothy 4:11; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 24) Peter also spoke affectionately of him. (1 Peter 5:13) As writer of possibly the earliest gospel and a primary source of Matthew and Luke, Mark’s contribution even to today’s church is beyond measure. This planet is a better place today because nineteen centuries ago a ‘no-hoper’ called stub-fingered decided to tough it out.   Knowing our weaknesses, our loving Father has preserved many such stories for us to gain strength.   ‘Then will I teach transgressors your ways,’ crooned David. When? After a calamitous moral fall. (Psalm 51:title, 3-5, 12-13)   ‘Simon . . .  feed my sheep.’ (John 21:17) When? After denying his Savior.   ‘He slew at his death more than he slew in his life.’ (Judges 16:30, paraphrase) When? After Samson’s greatest humiliation.   Samson and David each knew the horror of spiritual failure. On the crest of their vocation, they plunged to abominable depths. Their lapses were inexcusable. Their ministries were desecrated. Yet they refused to dwell in defeat. They were failures for a moment, but they were overcomers forever. Grasping God’s hand of forgiveness, they clambered to new heights for the exaltation of the One who washed them clean.   Oppression crushed Simon the rock into sand. On the brink of ministry, after years of grooming, he blew it. He lied. He invoked a curse on himself. He disowned his Lord. (Matthew 26:74) Yet though it rocked Simon, this one-time rock didn’t peter. Empowered by his Savior, he again turned to stone.   Though the righteous – that’s you and me in Christ Jesus – fall seven times, they rise again. That’s a promise. (Proverbs 24:16, see also Psalm 37:23-24)   It was just a hair-cut For the plaything of Delilah; And just a prayer-cut For Peter the denier. Strong they dozed But weak arose, And knew it not.     Men destroyed by fatal cuts; Left to wallow in their ruts; Left with blame And haunting shame, In sin to rot.     A seed so small and barely sown Meant to die, but how it’s grown! Things so small Grow so tall, But marvel not.     If sin can grow, So can prayer; If prayers will flow, So will hair. With faith restored Hope will soar, And blunders blot.     His repentance real, The victim of Delilah, Had victories still. And the spineless Christ-denier Shed his shame And became The church’s rock. Hot Gossip   Who would have guessed that a religion stressing lofty morals would cram into its holiest book the slimy details of King ‘Peeping Tom’ David, ‘lover-boy’ Solomon, fish-breath Jonah, sleazy Jacob, and two-faced Judah, (Genesis 38:11-26) to mention just a few of the seething swarm of con-men, backstabbers, rapists, murderers and whores that fill the Word of God?   Few Christian biographies are as fiercely honest as Scripture. If there were more books that gently peel the plastic off famous Christians, it would be easier for us to realize that we belong in the big league. For instance, John Wesley’s godly parents had a marriage so stormy it still puts the wind up people. His own string of abortive romances continued until finally he married, at age forty-seven. ‘The marriage started poorly and went downhill from there,’ wrote Petersen. ‘Perennial mutual resentment’ was how another writer described the union that spluttered and flared for twenty torturous years until ending in permanent separation.   Dwight Moody’s Christian graces have rightly been extolled, but have you heard of his temper? In public he once pushed someone with such violence that the man was sent reeling down the stairs. ‘This meeting is killed,’ gasped a friend of Moody, ‘The large number who have seen the whole thing will hardly be in a condition to be influenced by anything more Mr. Moody may say tonight.’   Martin Luther wrote things about Jews that, to say the least, are highly regrettable. And many of our early Protestant heroes in Europe, Britain and America, favored killing their theological opponents at the stake or gallows.   It takes a special life to win the devotion of natives the way David Livingstone did. Stanley glued himself to Livingstone day and night, week after week, and the experience melted his hard journalist’s heart. Four months of intense scrutiny led him to praise Livingstone’s piety, gentleness and zeal. ‘I never found a fault in him,’ he marveled. Yet though we could dwell long on the virtues that gilded Livingstone’s soul, slag touched the gold. It is said that throughout his life serious personality defects dogged his service.   John Sung has been called rude, stubborn, a poor family man, and China’s greatest evangelist.   Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision had one driving passion: ‘Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.’ An experienced biographer and researcher lauded him, declaring that ‘few people in history’ have ‘demonstrated greater compassion for suffering humanity than Bob Pierce.’ Yet just sentences later we read that ‘the love that he gave so freely’ to others ‘was given so sparingly to the ones who needed it most – his wife and his daughters.’   If you knew C. T. Studd personally you would probably be offended by his authoritarianism, his sledge-hammer bluntness, his harsh ultimatums. Like his own mission committee, you might worry about his use of morphine and want to suppress his book  Don’t Care a Damn . In common with those who knew and loved him most – even close family members – you may feel compelled to withdraw from this great missionary.   We cannot idolize our heroes without falling into heresy, such as the satanic lie that being used by God is a reward for living an exemplary life. Service – like salvation, holiness and every other spiritual gift – is always an undeserved gift received by childlike faith. (Galatians 3:2-5) God broke into Paul’s life and assigned to him his enormous ministry, not after he had proved himself, but when the man was fuming with murderous rage against Christ; while he was still – as he later confessed – the ‘chief’ of sinners, torturing Christians in the hope of making them blaspheme. (Acts 26:9-11,15-18; 22:4-8,10,14-16) Though it was years before he was released into its fullness, the timing of that original call is both illuminating and liberating. May the implications ricochet within our heads until our dying day.   Yes, our character flaws grieve and defame the Holy One. Yes, we must move heaven and earth to root out our shame. And yes, as impossible as it sounds, God’s holy power can trickle through flawed, sin-stained channels to a thirsty world.   God does not use synthetic saints petrified in stained glass or mummified in strained biographies. If the paper people squashed between book covers or exhibited in special Sunday services seem real to you, you’ll love the Easter Bunny. If you were thinking of cornering the market on your brand of inadequacy, forget it; heaven’s databanks bulge with the triumphs of people with quirks like yours. Heaven’s heroes are people with pimples and stringy hair; people with wrinkles and pug noses. If you’d like to see a real saint-in-training, a cheeky Master’s apprentice poised to gelignite Hell’s gates, someone on the brink of eternal acclaim, go to your mirror.   God’s Measure of Success   Alexander Maclaren was usually jittery before a sermon and afterwards crushed by the knowledge he had made a hash of it. People rank him with the greatest preachers earth has heard.   Most of us are convinced our ministry attempts languish far below the feats of fellow Christians. We peer over our shabby efforts to the sparkling success of others and almost quit. We are barraged with deadly fallacies about what constitutes effective service. My aim in an earlier chapter was to alert you to the dangers of narrow thinking and to arm you for this war in which we are taunted to surrender. My plan now is to hone those weapons and begin using them so that together we may engage this insidious foe.   Let’s look to Jesus for light to repel these dark forces of discouragement.   Never in human history has facing an average congregation been so daunting. For a wide range of ministries it’s a harrowing fact that your audience has seen/heard/read the world’s best. If you are a musician, for instance, you know the moment your listeners slip inside their homes, or even their cars, they have instant access to recorded music of the highest calibre.   But the Lord will honor your courage. As you humble yourself, for God’s sake exposing your limitations to the world, the King of glory will be proud to call you his child.   Your loving Father is far more moved by your attitude than your eloquence. One feeble, broken sentence empowered by the Spirit of God can accomplish more than the greatest talent earth has seen. (1 Corinthians 2:3-5)   From the age of four, I loved helping grandpa lay cement paths. Almost anyone could do a better job than a little child, but that was irrelevant. I was irreplaceable. I had a special place in grandpa’s heart.   And you have a special place in God’s heart. Physically, the Lord is totally self-sufficient. He needs us no more than a handyman needs the services of a four-year-old. But the Father’s joy could never be complete without your contribution.   A handicapped person might need your help, and despise you because of it. How much better it is to be wanted, than needed!   Has ever a father’s heart swelled with loving pride at a child’s pathetic attempt to help him? Then how much more will the boundless love of your Father in heaven be stirred by your attempts – even your weakest attempts – to honor him with your service.   To strangers, your ministry may just be one of thousands. But not to someone who loves you. And you mean most to the One who willed you into existence, fashioned you, redeemed you, and longs to fulfil your every need. Expect a personal invitation to a royal command performance in the presence of his Majesty, the King of kings.   Is it hard to believe the exalted Lord would like the sound of your voice or the work of your hands? Remember who created that voice and those hands. Beware: denigrating our gift comes close to denigrating the Giver. There’s a point where humility degenerates into an insult to One who made you and empowers you. I’ve fallen over the edge too often.   You have advantages over all mass ministries. No book, record, or television program can tailor its message to the specific needs of an individual. In our cold world, personal attention is more important than ever. It is better to transform an individual, than tickle the ears of millions. The person receiving all the accolades could merely be entertaining, achieving for the Kingdom far, far less than that house-bound, godly mother.   We are not responsible for the paucity of our talents. We are accountable, however, for the level of faithfulness with which we honor God with whatever we have. Could we have used our supposedly meager talent in a way that would have given God greater honor? That’s the burning issue, not whether we are as talented as Fred Nerk.   In the parable of the talents, it was the servant given the least who buried his gift. (Matthew 25:14-18) Don’t imagine the master said, ‘That’s okay, son. I didn’t give you much anyhow. I know you’re incapable of anything. Come, enter into the joy of your lord.’   For me, a single sentence is a man-crushing python – a writhing anaconda to be wrestled into submission only through a virtual life-and-death struggle. It is not uncommon for me to spend an hour formulating one sentence. The reward for such care? A tangle of half-strangled sentences squirming for more attention. On rare moments my word-groping lurches beyond snail-pace to a teeth-rattling tortoise-trot. Moments later I hit the dust again, compelled to retrace my route on hands and knees, scouring the text for hours like a near-sighted Mr. Magoo, convinced I must have missed something in my inordinate haste.   Words! There’s never one around when you need it. I try on a dozen for size, and even the best hangs off the cuff, is unfashionable and forever needs ironing. At school my English grades were so poor that I dropped the subject the first opportunity I had. There must be thousands of Christians who could have written this book with greater ease.   But they didn’t.   ‘You have a very readable style and some of your expressions and word usages are brilliant,’ wrote a magazine editor about an early draft of this book. I cherish that quote, but could any average person pour such torrents of prayer and effort and submission to God, year after year, into a project and the result be anything less than brilliant?   A boy had such intellectual limitations that his parents feared he was subnormal. He later remarked that being a slow learner lengthened his thinking time and caused him to focus on simple things. His perseverance paid off. He was Albert Einstein.   You will achieve as much as megastars who have twice your ability if you have twice their diligence. More importantly, your greater faithfulness will bring more glory to the Lord. It will thrill him. And your ministry in the world to come will far exceed the future ministry of a lax megastar.   The most significant work is not the one displaying the highest skill, but the one most used of God. The Lord is not seeking people who astound audiences with their talent. He wants ministries who will leave people exclaiming, ‘That had to be God!’ Our inadequacies are often the perfect backdrop for displaying God’s splendor. (2 Corinthians 4:7)   Our lack of ability will never thwart God – only our failure to draw upon his abilities. So if you feel too inadequate to minister effectively without miraculous intervention, I envy you. God’s strength is made perfect in such weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9) You sound desperate enough to keep pounding heaven’s door until you receive an exceptional blessing. (Genesis 32:24-28; Matthew 15:21-28; Luke 5:18-26; 11:5-13; 18:1-7; John 16:24) And that blessing will overflow to those you touch.   I often mourn the flaws in this book, but the grey is tinged with gold. The hope of improvement dies only when we think our labors are satisfactory. Provided we don’t bow to discouragement, the more failings we see in our efforts, the higher our motivation to improve and the brighter our future.   That sickening awareness of inadequacy can be turned around; hastening, rather than hindering, our future ministry.   Sweet Smell of Defeat   The secret of achieving something of heaven-shaking significance is to by-pass our limitations and tap directly into the power of the One who holds the stars. We’re in union with the Creator of sapphires and seraphim, molecules and galaxies. In him is all power, all wisdom, all love. Why, then, do we act like those who have no God? Empowered by him, our accomplishments should excel anything godless humanity could contemplate. Yet the more content we are to draw solely upon human resources, the more ‘God’s work’ is riddled with human frailty.   Love and good intentions are never enough. It was love for Jesus that caused Peter to blurt out words that had such the opposite effect to Peter’s wishes that Jesus retorted, ‘Get behind me Satan.’ (Mark 9:31-33) Job’s counselors seemed to have been motivated by deep concern for Job and genuine love for God when they unwittingly became Job’s tormenters and sinned against the God they thought they were defending. (Job 2:11-13; 4:17; 5:8-16; 8:3,20-22; 42:7-8)   We could be like little children redecorating the house for Daddy without waiting for instructions or help. Daddy might not even want the television painted. Sadly, our loving, enthusiastic efforts could prove worse than nothing. Oh, we may think we have done a marvelous job – until we meet Father face to face.   A disastrous failure could therefore be a great blessing. There is nothing like it for excising the tendency to draw upon human, rather than divine resources. If allowed to spread, that cancer would destroy an otherwise healthy ministry.   Any hurt that causes me to cling more firmly to Christ is a hurt for which I will be forever thankful. Any ‘defeat’ that has this result is a victory. What seems an obstacle to service ends up an essential stepping stone. Brought to God, a string of failures becomes a rainbow, at the end of which lies golden success. (Psalm 37:23-24; Proverbs 24:16; Micah 7:8; Romans 8:28)   If the following lines mirror your feelings, you’re headed for glory.   I need the Lord, my Maker, As rivers need to flow; As flowers need the sunlight; And seedlings need to grow; As marksmen need a target,And arrows need a bow. I’ve feigned my independence, But failed to improvise. I need the One I’m made for, As eagles need the skies. You’re my breath and my light, My food and my wine. I’m the brush, you’re the artist, I’m the string and you’re the harpist. Tune me for your glory.     I need the Lord, my Maker, As falcons need to see; As the clay needs a sculptor, And a lock needs a key. As a ship needs a rudder; And coral needs the sea. I’m done with empty living; Success that’s make-believe. I need the One I’m made for, As creatures need to breathe. You’re my strength and my hope, My peace and my shield. I’m the hands, you’re the healer, I’m the sword and you’re the victor. Wield me for your glory.     I need the Lord, my Maker, As an arm needs a hand; As a babe needs its mother; And a dove needs to land; As a car needs a driver And a glove needs a hand. I’m tired of ‘great achievements’, Of life that’s just a game. I need the One I’m made for, As deserts need the rain. You’re my life and my joy, My truth and my guide. I’m the song, you’re the Singer, I’m a well and you’re the water. Fill me for your glory.   Blessed are they who know their labors have failed, for they shall learn to serve God his way. But woe to them who vainly imagine God approves of their labors. They have their reward already.   False confidence leads to chaos. (Compare Proverbs 3:5,7; 28:26)   Don’t Panic – God At Work   Having surmounted enormous obstacles and years of preparation, Adoniram Judson arrived on the mission field. Seven hard years followed. All he had to show for it was one convert. It was about time he moved on to something more beneficial – peddling hair curlers at a  Bald is Beautiful  convention, developing waterproof pianos for people who sing in the shower, fitting parachutes to birds that are afraid of heights – anything but trying to win souls in Burma.   One day a man came to his house looking for work and instead found Jesus, his Savior. Another pin prick. But this one burst the balloon. The new convert became a powerful evangelist. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands turned to the Lord. Within a century, over a quarter of a million Christians directly or indirectly owed their spiritual lives to Adoniram Judson.   But that’s eternity’s view. Years after that key conversion, Adoniram’s life still seemed a waste. He was thrown into a death prison and chained to a granite block. Every night guards, ex-criminals themselves, hoisted his ankle fetters high above his head so that only his head and shoulders touched the ground. As he lay in appalling filth, almost every thought produced a new reason for despair. There were then only eighteen converts. Surely most, perhaps all, would fall away or be killed under the new outbreak of persecution. Years of struggle had produced a lone manuscript of a Burmese New Testament and his wife had smuggled it into prison. Any moment it could be discovered and destroyed. His relations with fellow missionaries had been marred by hurtful clashes. He had buried his only child. His own life hung by a thread. He feared for his darling, pregnant wife.   ‘I came to bring life,’ he moaned, ‘and have brought nothing but death.’   After a year and a half of cruelty he was finally released. A brief reunion with his precious wife ended with him having to wrench himself from her to assist in political negotiations. Weeks turned to months. Before he could return to his wife, she was dead. Months later, death tore from him his only remaining child, the baby he had battled so hard to save. After two more years of mental deterioration, still numb with guilt over being absent when his wife most needed him, he dug a grave and lingered by it for days on end, his mind churning with morbid thoughts. ‘God is to me the Great Unknown,’ he concluded. ‘I believe in him, but I find him not.’   The mighty Lord hauled him up. He became one of the most admired missionaries of all time.   Sadly, not everyone slogs through the tough ground-breaking years. David Flood’s solitary convert was just a child. When David’s wife died, discouragement won. Leaving his baby daughter, Aggie, with a missionary couple, young David left Africa – and the Lord. After the collapse of his second marriage he took in a mistress. Alcohol, poverty, illness and degradation tightened their deadly strangle-hold.   As his abandoned daughter grew, married and served the Lord, she often thought of the father she had never known. He was 77 when Aggie finally stood at his grimy bedside, ignored the stench, and hugged him. Her love and Christ’s power brought David back to the One who had moved him to ‘waste’ his life in Africa. Aggie also brought startling news. That little convert he had left in Africa had built on the foundation David and his wife had laid and the entire tribe of 600 people had come to Christ.   It’s not only missionaries who are allowed to have lean years.   Hounded by defeat, Immersed in gloom. Confounded by a curse, Scorned and spurned. Haunted by despair, Mocked by words of doom. My eyes may fill with tears, But not with dread or fear.     This grub, wings will sprout. This down-trodden worm will soar; Transformed by redemptive power, Set free by the Lord of all. No one sees it yet: The secret’s heaven-kept. They mock and jeer They do not know; Success is slow, but it is sure; Though it tarry, it will come. All Father touches turns to gold. It matters not what others say, The winning’s done; Like Father, like son!     Founded on his Word; Embalmed by love. Surrounded by his arms; Washed and warmed. Granted all I need, Buoyed by thoughts above: From fear I find release, Becalmed by heaven’s peace.   The shadow of his affliction fell across his life like a black and bottomless chasm. Reeling under hellish torment, bereft of all his children, cruelly stripped of his reputation, all of his possessions gone, Job coveted death. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing ahead but pain, accusations and despair. Job had nothing to live for. (Job 3:1-26; 6:9, 11) Or so everyone thought.   Before him lay joy and honor, a long and fruitful life, double his past prosperity and the fathering of a superb new family. (Job 42:11-17; compare Job 1:2-3) Job had everything to live for.   Like vine branches, we are not continually laden with fruit. That would be unnatural. (Ecclesiastes 3:1) For a significant portion of its life, a grapevine is nothing but a dry, twisted stick; fruitless, useless for shade, worthless as timber; to all appearances fit only to be ripped from the ground and reduced to ashes. Yet those barren times are as vital in the life of the vine, as the seasons of fruit.   If spring could tip-toe past nature without stirring it from its winter slumber; if the sun could slip through the sky without dispelling the night; if rain could fall to the ground without bringing life to the desert – only then should you fear dry times, dark times, lean times. Though you feel as useless as a fur coat in a heat-wave, the time will come when your warmth is treasured. For everything there is a season.   We could stock a library with stories of spectacularly unsuccessful men and women who eventually sparked massive moves of God. Many closed their eyes in death without seeing the fruit their labors finally produced.   No matter what we think of his views, it is staggering to realize that Søren Kierkegaard’s writings slept for almost a century after his death until translated into English and suddenly stunning the world. And consider the Jim Elliots of this world whose apparently untimely deaths have inspired countless thousands to take up the baton and run in their stead. Though they died seemingly at the very outset of their life’s work, the final result was beyond what a dozen lifetimes could achieve. Still more tantalizing are heaven’s best-kept secrets – triumphs by people we have never heard of, or achievements our slow minds cannot adequately appreciate.   Nonetheless, God established the pattern millenniums ago: Sarah knew nothing but barrenness for ninety distressing years, yet became the ancestress of multiplied millions.   Clearly, the crucial issue is not what God has so far accomplished in our lives. God took twice as long preparing Moses as he did in using him. (Deuteronomy 2:7; 34:7) Joshua’s experience was similar. (Numbers 14:30, 34; Joshua 1:1-2; 24:29) For the Messiah – and perhaps his Baptist forerunner – it was about thirty years’ preparation for three years ministry. In fact, much of Christ’s ministry was packed into the last few days. (E.g., John 12:1 ff; Mark 11:1 ff) Samson accomplished more in his last seconds than in all the rest of his life. (Judges 16:30)   Wine has a longer shelf life than prune juice.   Even for the Christian, life can seem a sadistic joke. In reality, our circumstances are determined by infinite love met by infinite wisdom empowered by infinite might. (Lose sight of that and life’s a muesli bar – all mixed up and nutty.)   We need not flinch from hardship. In a mollusk’s slimy gut a speck becomes a pearl. In the bowels of the earth oppressive conditions turn blobs into diamonds.   Moreover, at this very moment, the Lord could be replaying in someone’s mind heaven’s recording of a conversation you had with that person years ago. You’ve forgotten the incident, but God is still using it. What you thought were normal words were Spirit-powered. You don’t feel the warm glow that would be yours if you knew those words were still echoing through the chambers of someone’s mind, but face it: results mean more to you than elusive feelings.   Success Heaven Style   There was an old man in a dither; All that he sowed seemed to wither. Yet a voice from above Said in words full of love, ‘Of you I’m so proud, come up hither.’    (Well, what else rhymes with ‘wither?’)   There is unrivalled fulfillment inherent in serving the Lord in the exact capacity he has chosen for us. And the Evil Genius knows it. We have a formidable arsenal with which to smash the power of demonic brain-washing. Many of our weapons are variants of one irrefutable truth: as we cannot say an ear is superior to a mouth or an eye, so it is folly to regard one calling as superior to another. We are all essential parts of the incorruptible body of the risen Lord.   Every ministry is beautiful, precious, vital. Too often, however, we are blinded by what we see.   Most Old Testament prophets looked like failures. If they weren’t experts at handling rejection, it wasn’t through lack of practice. (Hebrews 11:36-38) They were as much fun as bathroom scales at a banquet. Their message would curdle the milk of human kindness. In just two minutes their hearers’ faces would take on the appearance of used chewing gum. Jeremiah was branded a traitor. (Jeremiah 38:4-5) Elijah was a fugitive. (1 Kings 18:10; 19:2-3) Many were ridiculed. Few managed to slow the moral landslide. (Isaiah 6:9-13) Some may not have understood their own prophecies. (Daniel 8:26; 12:8-9; 1 Peter 1:10-12; compare John 11:51) But their heavenly assignment touched none of these things. They were simply God’s mouth-pieces. Results were not their responsibility. (E.g., Jeremiah 1:7-9, 19; Ezekiel 2:3-7; 33:7-9; Isaiah 6:9-13)   ‘For twenty-three years,’ moaned Jeremiah, ‘I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.’ The heart-piercing thing is that at this point Jeremiah had about as many years of rejection  ahead  of him as the twenty-three years of ostracism he had already endured. (Jeremiah 25:1-3; 1:2-3) (There’s something to be said for having a short ministry.)   Yet though they rasped a message as comforting as burrs in bed-linen, these prophets were the talk of the nation. As welcome as slugs in cabbage soup, but their names were on everyone’s lips. They were Israel’s most wanted – special guests at rock concerts; proudly hung in public exhibitions; sawn in half by popular demand; that sort of thing. Centuries later, Paul so excelled that everyone thought of him as the man to beat. Some left no stone unturned in their eagerness to leave a lasting impression. A few even took the time to rock him to sleep. (Acts 14:19-20) It’s hard not to be envious, isn’t it?   Such vocations, by their very nature, grab the headlines. They get the bouquets and the bricks through the window. Other ministries send tremors through the spirit-world without attracting human attention.   Of necessity, singers perform in public; sound mixers and prayer fighters serve off-stage. Everyone sees your eyebrow. No one sees your liver. But which is more important?   Your average evangelist steals glory for soul-winning from those who prayed, witnessed and worked the miracle of enticing non-Christians to a Christian meeting. Many of the evangelist’s ‘converts’ either found Christ before he arrived or through counseling after he left. Though few preachers are deliberate glory thieves, there will be many reversals in the next life.   We are pressured to evaluate a ministry by how much it reaps. But this is an invalid measure. It often reflects merely the nature, not the success, of one’s service. ‘One sows, another reaps,’ taught Jesus. (John 4:37 – note also verse 38; 1 Corinthians 3:5-10) If you are called to sow, then to reap is to abdicate your responsibility. You might impress a few people, but not the One who counts.   If neither ‘reaping’ nor public acclaim indicates success, neither does the amount of time devoted to spiritual work. We’ve established that part-time service is by no means intrinsically inferior to full-time service. And we know that in just three days our crucified King accomplished more than the combined efforts of the entire human race from Adam until now.   The Measure of a Ministry   After only thirteen years of preaching, Frederick W. Robertson (1816-1853) died, convinced he was a failure. Today, his sermons still in print and his influence incalculable, he is known as the ‘preacher’s preacher.’ Warren Wiersbe suggests that Robertson’s feeling of failure was intensified by his military background that enticed him to expect more definitive victories than preaching usually allows.   We view Jonah’s ministry as exceptionally successful. Single-handedly, he saved the entire populace of magnificent Nineveh. You’d expect him to be as excited as a centipede at a shoe sale, yet his face was a good imitation of half a squeezed grapefruit. (Jonah 4:1-3) His whole message had been, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ (Jonah 3:4) Forty days later, Nineveh was celebrating and Jonah was suicidal. The envy of evangelists, perhaps, but as a prophet this man was a write-off.   ‘Success’ hinges entirely on the measure used. Genuine success – the synthetic varieties don’t last – is achieving what God expects of us. Only God can measure it. Don’t gauge hurdlers by how high they jump, or pole-vaulters by how fast they run. Judge archers by their accuracy but don’t apply this measure to javelin throwers. If that seems obvious it’s because sport lacks the mystery of real life. In the game of life spectators speculate, the Judge judges.   Eleven thousand teachers competed with Christa McAuliffe and lost. The winner of a seat on space shuttle Challenger was the envy of millions – until the shuttle disintegrated. Eleven thousand losers suddenly became winners.   In the twinkling of an eye, the first shall be last. (1 Corinthians 15:52; Matthew 20:16; Luke 16:15) Until that wondrous moment, don’t assume you’re a loser.   Many of us are far more successful than we imagine; perhaps more than our humility could handle. It is tragic to find in the body of Christ an ear accused of failure because it cannot see, or an eye that thinks it’s let the body down because it cannot smell.   What the world thinks, what other Christians think, what you think, is irrelevant. Nothing matters except God’s approval. It is the sole measure of a ministry.   For the person who understands God’s ways, brokenness holds no terror. Being reduced to insignificance in our own eyes is a sure way of wooing divine attention. ‘You may easily be too big for God to use,’ remarked Dwight Moody, ‘but you can never be too small.’ Peter Sumner has distilled an amazing truth from the way Christ fed the multitudes: whatever God breaks, he blesses; whatever he blesses, he uses; whatever he uses, he multiplies. (Matthew 14:17-20; 15:34-37) For Sumner, this is truth pounded out on the steel anvil of life. He was permanently blinded in a freak accident while giving up his vacation to help renovate a building for Christian use. From this broken life grew the  Christian Foundation for the Blind .   Don’t be too hasty is despising what you imagine to be your flaws and weaknesses.   The Mocker glares at you. ‘Cracked pot!’ he snarls. You shrink inside, unable to hear the adoration of people in the age to come. ‘Exquisite vessel, perfectly formed to touch our lives!’ they cry to you. ‘Through that crack God’s oil flowed out to us.’   We seem the object of ridicule, yet we’re the focus of infinite love. We’re fruit growing sweeter, wine gaining value; not milk going sour. We’re not cardboard caving, colors fading, under the weight of time; we’re concrete drying stronger, trees growing higher, dawn glowing brighter.   If your life is on ‘hold’, the hands holding you bear love-prints and they’re nestling you close to the Father’s heart.   Glorious things are ahead.   ‘Wasted’ Years   If we knew God’s evaluation of our labors, much frustration would evaporate.   Remember Father Abraham. Able to see just one layer of God’s artistry, he thought having physical descendants would be his greatest achievement. On that basis, waiting made little sense. As we saw earlier, however, his main ministry lay in having spiritual descendants – saints inspired by the faith he displayed during the delay. (Romans 4:12-13,16-24; 9:6-8; Galatians 3:6-9,14; Hebrews 11:11-12) Instead of deferring ministry, his childlessness enabled him to exercise his highest calling – inspiring faith. What to Abraham seemed wasted years were among his most productive.   When Daniel’s three friends were pushed into the furnace, it looked like the end of ministry hopes. Instead, it became their finest hour. (Daniel 3:1-30)   Paul’s epistles seem a desperate reaction to the annoyance of distance or prison keeping him from his ‘real’ mission. (Romans 1:10-13; 15:22-23; Philippians 4:1a; 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18; 3:10) He might have felt as frustrated as an injured sportsman reduced to urging his team from the sidelines. Yet it is this ‘side-line’ ministry, rather than his ‘real’ one, that has snowballed down the hills of time. According to Andrew Bonar, we have gained more from Paul’s imprisonment than from his visit to the third heaven.   From the time he was licensed to preach, Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) served for nine years in a church so tiny that it could not have held more than 250 people. ‘I see exceedingly small fruit of my ministry,’ he lamented, ‘I would be glad of one soul . . . ’ Then church leaders silenced him. Stripped of his church and forbidden to preach, he penned some private letters. He had no idea that after his death his mail would be read by countless thousands, powerfully touching generations of Christians.   Though the pool of examples seems bottomless, to dip further is superfluous. ‘In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.’ (2 Corinthians 13:1; Deuteronomy 19:15) The case is proved: we may be mightily used of God when least aware of it. What seems an infuriating hindrance to service could actually be eliciting vital ministry.   Brilliant Disaster   My invitations to speak are as common as leap years. I even pounced on the chance to speak at my father’s funeral.   I had on paper words with the power to comfort and challenge, and the Lord enabled me to deliver them without embarrassment. God’s so gracious. From an eternal viewpoint, however, saving face was inconsequential. Ultimately, nothing mattered, as long as Spirit-charged words entered needy hearts. It could easily have happened this way:   I arrive at the pulpit only to discover I have the wrong folder. In naked horror I bolt up the aisle to drive home to my notes, then remember my keys. I sheepishly return, groping over stunned mourners in a blind hunt. Keys in hand, I storm out again and drive off with blunder and lightning, side-swiping the hearse on the way.   Finally clutching my proper notes, I flee my mangled car and burst through the church, knocking a vase of flowers. In cold obedience to Murphy’s Law, the vase nosedives, drenching the coffin and drowning my trousers. I stagger to the pulpit, terrorized by mind-freezing humiliation. Convulsed by a giddy whirl of sobs and stutters, I crash over words, slipping and slurring through a minefield of bloopers, until I close; an hysterical disaster.   Yet if those mashed, soggy words still fulfilled their intended mission, my blubbering disgrace would have been a howling success from eternity’s view.   I could have wanted to slither under the nearest rock. Heaven could have wanted to give a standing ovation.   We have no right to imagine we have failed unless heaven expressly reveals it to us.   Precisioned Blunders   John Pemberton formulated a potion to ‘whiten teeth, cleanse the mouth, harden and beautify the gums, and relieve mental and physical exhaustion.’ He named his chemical concoction Coca-Cola.   Locust plagues were receiving media attention in Australia when Peter McFarlane hatched a practical joke. He fooled the press into thinking he planned to export candied locusts as a gourmet food. Newspapers around the world picked up the story and McFarlane was inundated with inquiries. (Multitudes of non-Westerners share John the Baptist’s appreciation of these tasty critters.) It was hilarious – until the joke took a U-turn. As expressions of interest mounted, candied locusts began to look too commercially attractive to pass up. The last I heard, he was planning serious production trials.   Then there’s Christopher Colombus’s trip to Asia. To America’s delight, that, too, went strangely haywire.   If people following their own impulses sometimes achieve things delightfully different to their intentions, who knows what wonders await Spirit-led individuals? (Note Proverbs 20:24)   Though many of us seem blown off-course by fickle winds, these perplexing diversions could be divinely-tuned course adjustments. Often the frustration is because we are heading for a vocation quite different – and ultimately more rewarding – to the one we imagine.   You might, for example, be hoping to win hundreds to Christ and succeed only in raising up another evangelist. He may win countless thousands and they in turn win still more. You could go to the grave thinking you have failed, oblivious that heaven credits a million souls to your name.   In fact, your greatest contribution might flow from your greatest weakness. If you find my book useful, it’s because I have felt useless. It’s the spear through my heart that binds me to the pain in yours. It’s years plagued with questions that have unearthed answers. Had something dulled my pain, you would not be reading this book.   John Bunyan’s spiritual torment was horrific. With a severity that few of us could even conceive, year after year he was repeatedly overwhelmed by sin, hopelessness and the seemingly certain prospect of an eternity in Hell. Then followed long years of harsh imprisonment, intensified even when not in prison by the very real threat of execution or deportation. No wonder  Pilgrim’s Progress  is such an outstandingly powerful book. Much of it was virtually autobiographical.   Great men like Whitefield and the Wesleys suffered enormously in their struggle to find salvation. Whitefield’s spiritual need was so all-consuming that his fastings almost killed him. John and Charles were inconsolable until at long last they found salvation. Spurgeon suffered so greatly in his quest for salvation that he wrote, ‘I had rather pass through seven years of the most launching sickness, than I would ever again pass the through terrible discovery of the evil of sin. Not surprisingly, their subsequent ministries eclipsed that of almost all Christians who have been spared such anguish of soul.   Mark Virkler’s torment was his inability to hear God’s voice. In vain he sought the help of those who regularly heard from God. They could not even understand his problem. For them, it’s as easy as prayer. Year after year, Mark wrestled in the agony of silence. Why would a Father who longs to communicate with his treasured children, allow him to suffer so cruelly? Because, unlike those for whom hearing comes easily, Mark now has answers which have swept thousands to ‘the other side of silence’.   Traumas qualify us for ministry like nothing else can. After losing his sight, Dr. William Moon prayed a prayer that was powerfully answered: ‘Lord, help me use this talent of blindness in your service . . . ’   Barbara Johnson has touched incalculable numbers of people for the glory of Christ, because of the numbing horror of being robbed of two sons through death, losing a third to a gay lifestyle, and her husband being critically injured.   Who would have heard of Corrie ten Boom or Richard Wurmbrand if they had not suffered in prison camps?   Rather than test your patience by citing hundreds more examples, let me conclude by stating the obvious: for vast numbers of Christians, the spiritual impact of their lives seems directly proportional to their past agony. Situations they would have most wanted to avoid – times when death seemed preferable – empowered their lives like no other experience.   When Everything Fizzles   ‘You’re a real spiritual dynamo,’ said the devil.   ‘Well thank you!’ I gushed, surprised to find the enemy in such a good mood. ‘A dynamo, eh?’   ‘Yeah, I get a charge out of seeing you go around in circles!’   If I say so myself, my plans are executed brilliantly – by unseen assassins. Just when life seems all peaches and cream, I have to go on a low cholesterol diet.   ‘It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.’ A book of quotations ascribes those words to Thomas Fuller, but it didn’t say what planet he lived on. You need only see a Warner Brothers cartoon to know it’s always darkest just before a large falling object flattens you.   The occasional disaster aside, things go almost perfectly. I almost marry. I almost get a better job. I almost catch my notes before they fall into the shredder. My car almost starts.   I tried my hand at rowing on a sea inlet in Kangaroo Island. I rowed furiously and got nowhere. I couldn’t figure it out. I later learnt that the tide is particularly strong in that area. (At another place my father had a similar rowing experience. He found pulling up the anchor helped considerably.) Years later I received a word from the Lord. I had been rowing against the tide, it said, but the tide would turn. Me? Rowing against the tide? Everything I do works like a charm – hangs around my neck and achieves nothing. My idea of a record year is being needled as I go around in circles. Murphy’s laws are parts of my autobiography that slipped out before I could copyright them. Why does my bread always fall butter-side down? Why are the lights always red? Oh, no! My pen’s run dry. (Really!)   Now, where was I? O yes – why does everything go wrong for me? Why do my hopes die with their legs in the air? Why would people rather read a soap wrapper than something I’ve written? I begin to wax eloquent and the wax sets. I try to witness and my mind goes blank. I try to sleep and my mind fills up. It’s a miracle. I know when the rapture will occur – ten minutes after I make the final payment on a prepaid funeral. Just call me the Aluminum Kid – foiled again. I have more problems than a chiropractor with a waiting-room full of giraffes. Another day another bother.   I wasn’t aware of doing anything wrong. In fact, I was told the tide would change, not that I would change. Why would God allow these frustrations?   All I know is that rowing against the tide builds muscles and stamina. Imagine how I’ll power through the waves when the tide turns.   George Muller seems to have suffered from tide problems, too. Though he enjoyed God’s miraculous provision daily for more than sixty years, the life of faith never grew easy for him. Even in his later years when he gained international fame, he still had to pray in every penny, often having to economize and wait virtually to the death knock before it arrived. The Lord so believed in Muller and so cared for his continued spiritual development that he kept the tests coming for sixty years until finally granting him a financially easier life when Muller entered his late eighties.   I started writing this book using the services of a typist. This was a wonderful answer to prayer. Not only was Lorraine willing to type without charge, she had a computer ideally suited to my needs. (The way I write – faster than a speeding eraser; more change than a thousand piggy banks; able to spell a single word in a hundred ways – a computer is essential.)   Weighed down by past failures, I had little faith to pay a typist big money for work that might end up with my dust-covered previous efforts. For the same reason, I was loath to buy my own equipment and I was convinced I’d type like a one-armed sloth with arthritis.   Suddenly, Lorraine was unable to complete the work. Another ministry attempt bites the dust. No! Surely the Lord provided her! What’s going on?   The typing already done enabled others to view samples of my work. Their response nerved me to buy a computer and learn new ways to lose data. My writing soared. Never again would I want to be dependent upon a typist, no matter how willing, available and skilled. What seemed an inexplicable obstacle has propelled me into a new realm of efficiency.   Those contrary winds are not as fickle as they seem.   Paralysis   Edison invented the light bulb not by trial and triumph, but by trial and error (over 1600 errors, I’m told). During his life, he didn’t stop at mere failures. He made some spectacular blunders – like when he was meant to be selling newspapers and ended up setting a train on fire. (I must look into this: Edison and I might be related.)   Mistakes are rarely the black ogre they seem. We’ve seen how failure can be a valuable asset, cleansing us of ugly pride; correcting and directing us; barricading enticing avenues that meander away from heaven’s best, or purging us of reckless independence and pushing us deeper into the heart of God.   Out of control, however, the fire that warms can destroy. When failure piles on top of failure, the hideous shadow of a psychological barrier slithers across our mind. As failures mount ever higher, we all begin to quake. Yet Edison refused to be intimidated, though the dark mountain grew every day. With a mere three months of formal schooling and considered to have had a learning disability, Edison eventually became one of the most prolific inventors of all time. In his struggle to invent a method of storing electricity he is said to have had tens of thousands of failures. Attempt 50,000 – or thereabouts – worked.   We can cower in defeat like the mass of humanity, afraid of shadows, or we can become Edisons.   It’s been said Oral Roberts has been used of God in the miraculous healing of more people than anyone else in human history. Just one humiliating complication – it is also estimated he has prayed for more people who  haven’t  been healed than anyone else ever has.   Many people call C. H. Gabriel the king of hymn writers. His most famous work, ‘The Glory Song,’ translated into almost every major language, is estimated to have been printed over one hundred million times. He earned a reputation of being better than anyone in the world at putting the finishing touches on a hymn. Yet he claimed he experienced more failure than success.   ‘The way to succeed,’ said Thomas J. Watson, ‘is to double your failure rate.’ Watson isn’t your average crack-pot. He founded IBM.   What often distinguishes successful people is the uncommon number of failures they suffer. The rest of us give up before experiencing our full quota.   If failures are rungs on the ladder to success, we reach the top not merely by seeing failures, but by mounting them.   One rejection from a publisher would send me reeling. How many blows could you sustain before forever abandoning the idea of becoming a writer? Ten? Fifteen? Fifty? Would-be novelist John Creasey received an unbroken succession of 743 rejections. I’d be throwing in the towel, the soap, the bath water, my rubber duck, my little red tugboat, everything I could lay my hands on. Few people would ever expose themselves to such devastating failure. That’s why so few enjoy the renown he finally achieved. While unsuccessful, he was forced to write deep into the night. He came late to his paid employment so often that he was fired from twenty-seven different jobs. Undaunted, he continued to perfect his writing, striving to be so good that his skill could no longer be ignored. Shy success crept near, then swept him to fame. Over sixty million of his books have been published.   The chilly winds of rejection can ruffle our feathers or carry us to new heights. Sag in doubt or stretch wings heavenward and soar: the choice is ours.   It is not arid persistence that success finds irresistible, but a dogged resolve to improve. Don’t huddle in self-pity. Harness rejection’s power. Let it spur you to a greater commitment, inspiring you to new levels of excellence.   We often let God down. It is even worse if Satan persuades us that the resulting failure is God’s fault, rather than our own. (Proverbs 19:3) But we must not let past fizzlers paralyze us. Acting outside of God’s time will hurt. It is ludicrous, however, to let such traumas darken our expectations of future service. Moving in God’s time and manner will be markedly different.   Escape   Experimental psychologists designed a dog enclosure, divided by a low barrier and wired to deliver electrical shocks to half the cage. Dogs quickly learned to cross the barrier and avoid the unpleasant shocks. New dogs, however, were given the shocks no matter what they did. The ‘mad scientists’ then changed the conditions so that these dogs, like the first ones, could easily avoid the shocks. Yet they never learned. Being subjected to a no-win situation had rendered the second group of dogs incapable of succeeding. Even in their home cages they seemed lethargic and dejected.   Psychologists call this phenomenon  learned helplessness . The only way they could get the dogs to avoid the shocks was to physically drag them over the barrier.   Can I ever identify with those pathetic creatures! It’s as if for my whole life I’ve been victim of a sadistic conspiracy to crush me into a whimpering defeatist. Yet even if your experience has been more harrowing, there is one thing distinguishing us from those dogs. Though racked by failed ministry attempts, we can know when conditions for ministry have changed, because we’re in union with the God who knows. The sovereign Lord enjoys certain advantages in being omnipotent, one of which is the ability to communicate with even the deafest, densest (why are you looking at me?) of his children. (Compare John 10:4, Romans 8:14) We may still question whether it was God, but after entreating him we will receive enough confirmation to warrant giving it a go.   All we then need is faith to mount the barrier.   Use steps. Start with a minor challenge. Slowly, methodically, climb higher. Even if your situation seems a case of all or nothing, prayer, creativity and persistence will usually carve a series of steps into a towering barrier.   Try spending fifteen or more minutes a day simply imagining yourself totally at ease, doing something you presently find just a little daunting. Over days or weeks, slowly advance – moving in your mind to the next stage only when you can picture the scene in detail without experiencing the slightest tension in your body. Research has convincingly demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach in breaking fear’s fangs. Add to this the prayer of faith and the power of knowing that Jesus is with you, and in a few weeks you will mount that barrier.   You’ll find this method far more dignified than having to be dragged over. I am not too keen about the whole of heaven looking on while I’m madly yelping, claws dug in, being yanked by the scruff of my neck to a place of joy and fulfillment that my foolishness imagines to be a den of terror.   There’s an alternative to volunteering or being forced. And it’s even worse. Geriatric specialist Dr. Peter Rowe reported in a British medical journal the case of a thirty-four-year-old lady who caught influenza. She was examined by a doctor who told her to stay in bed until he saw her again. He never returned. She never got up. Forty years later a doctor examined a plump, seventy-four-year-old, bed-ridden spinster. He found her in perfect health, still refusing to get up. It took seven more months of coaxing before she left the comfort and security of her quilt-covered prison. Then followed three ‘fairly active’ years until she met her Maker.   You may be a pew-warmer for a while, but don’t get too comfortable! I’d prefer the torment of endless striving. Better to chase a God-given dream through a minefield, than be as snug as a slug in the mud.   Too Ordinary?   Young Samuel initially failed to respond to God’s voice. (1 Samuel 3:3 ff) It sounded too ordinary. He probably expected God to thunder his commands with booming voice and Technicolor vision.   God often breathes through thoughts, desires, circumstances or human agencies. If we are looking for something more spectacular, we might not recognize his call.   Yet we can just as easily err in the opposite direction, missing the Spirit’s leading, not because it seems too ordinary, but because it seems too bizarre.   Earlier in my full book, Waiting for Your Ministry, I skimmed the mad-cap exploits of Spirit-intoxicated saints. I didn’t so much as mention such star performers as Elisha who made the weirdest UFO claim ever concocted, whacked a river with his coat, threw salt in the town’s water supply, lay on a corpse, and urged followers to eat poison. (2 Kings 2:11-18, 13-14, 20-21; 4:32-33, 40-41) So obviously we’ve left untold the antics of lesser-known oddballs like Agabus, who tied himself in knots. (Acts 21:10-11) But despite this book being shorter than the Bible, I hope I’ve squashed any illusion that your ministry will be ‘normal’, because everyone else will expect it of you.   It was hard to rate a mention in the Bible unless you made a laughing stock of yourself. God hasn’t changed. You can be as conservative as God allows, but that will not be nearly as innocuous as the world, the flesh and half the church want you to be.   It’s scary being different. We’d rather hide, trying to clone someone else’s ministry. But there’s simply no demand for more impersonators. There is, however, a demand for your unique contribution.   Resist the pressure to conform. You may die of embarrassment, but you’ll live in glory. The world needs your distinctive ministry.   A Cup of Water?   Now for some free verse – no one would pay for it.   I can’t evangelize or speak; Can’t even wash people’s feet. I sing like a sea-sick crow. When I arrive, people go. As a shepherd I’d lose the sheep. When I pray, heaven falls asleep. No one could be So useless as me. I can do nothing at all. Life for me is so sinister – (Pardon while I answer this call.)    Yes, Mr. President – er – Prime Minister. Have you read any more of the Bible?   Yes, I’ll pray for revival. The prince wants to see me on Sunday, I could squeeze you in on Monday . . .     What was I saying before that call? O now I remember it all! No one could be So useless as me. I can do nothing at all.   You’re sure you’re achieving nothing, but I wonder if heaven finds your lamentations a bigger joke than my poetry. There are no angelic chuckles over your pain – heaven weeps – but how laughable is your logic? (Jesus said nothing about having the  brains  of a mustard seed.) How oblivious are you to your triumphs? There are a thousand important ways of serving besides the few that at present get all the attention.   Take hospitality. Though Scripture exalts this prized ministry, we downgrade it. (E.g., 2 Kings 4:8-17; Job 31:32; Isaiah 58:6-7; Acts 16:15; Romans 12:13; 16:23; 1 Timothy 5:10; 1 Peter 4:9-10; 3 John 5-8; and many others) It has been both received, (Genesis 18:1-8; 19:1-3; Luke 7:44-46; 24:29-31; Hebrews 13:2) and engaged in, by such glorious beings as angels (1 Kings 19:5-8) and even Christ himself. (John 13:4-5; 21:9-13) A cup of water offered in love? We might despise it. Heaven doesn’t. (Matthew 10:40-42)   Of all the people Elijah could have gone to during the famine, he sought the ministry of a hopelessly impoverished widow – and a Gentile one at that. Her ministry of hospitality was so precious to the Lord that he turned it into a spectacular miracle. (1 Kings 17:10-24; Luke 4:25-26)   Of course, we’re too spiritual to regard dressmaking as a beautiful ministry. We’re more spiritual than God! Read the touching story of the raising to life of Dorcas. (Acts 9:36,39) We are left with the impression that her needlework warmed the heart of God. Sewing can be a chore, a chance to boast, or an opportunity to bless. You know this lady’s choice. The world may miss it, but whenever God sees a twentieth century Dorcas, beauty is in the eye of a needle.   Amid the throng that flocked to Jesus was a select band. Early in Luke’s Gospel we read of them. There was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and many others, who materially supported Jesus and his disciples. (Luke 8:1-3) Luke had already drawn attention to Jesus’ mother, whose incessant labors for her son must have been as immense as those of most mothers. Their ranks swelled to include Martha and her sister, and probably many more. One of them wove Jesus’ seamless robe. Another perfumed his feet. Some cooked his meals. Others gave from their purse. Precious ministries. When things got so tough that even Christ’s most loyal followers fell away, the world beheld these women’s glory and the majesty of their seemingly mundane ministry. They were with their Master to the last, comforting and supporting him. They prepared his body and visited his grave; serving when everyone else had given up. No wonder it was to them that the risen Lord first appeared.   Even today there are treasured saints who cook Christ’s meals, wash his clothes and nurse him through sickness. They take the homeless into their homes. They clothe derelicts. They hug AIDS patients. ‘Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.’ (Matthew 25:40)   We are forever overlooking the joys of apparently menial tasks. When Jesus turned water into wine, the master of ceremonies was oblivious to the miracle. He didn’t even know it had once been water. ‘But the servants who had drawn the water knew.’ (John 2:9)   Heaven is as moved by Miss Nameless cleaning vomit from a drunk, as by Rev. Bigstar preaching the greatest sermon ever heard.   ‘How do you do manage to do the work of two men?’ David Livingstone asked C. H. Spurgeon.   ‘You have forgotten there are two of us,’ replied the preacher, thinking of his wife, ‘ and the one you see the least of often does the most work .’   This rule extends far beyond the Spurgeons.   I expect the upper echelons of heaven to be dominated by women. Though things are slowly changing, historically it has been women who are the great servers, the kingdom’s unseen, unthanked power. The last shall be first. (Matthew 20:16; Mark 9:35; 10:43-44)   Sacred Service Agents   When the church appointed its first deacons, they were looking for people to distribute welfare. Nothing about the task was essentially spiritual. In theory, trustworthy pagans could have done it. Yet the early church carefully selected Christians of outstanding caliber. Each was of high character, ‘full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom’. (Acts 6:3) One of them, Stephen, was further eulogized as being filled with faith, grace and power. He had a ‘signs and wonders ministry’, and under the Spirit’s anointing was such a persuasive speaker that the church’s enemies regarded him, rather than any of the apostles, as their greatest threat. (Acts 6:5,8,10 ff) Not only was he martyred (an honor I have graciously offered to defer), he attained this glory before any of the others. Another welfare distributor, Philip, was a powerful evangelist with a miracle ministry. He pioneered work in Samaria, turning the whole city right side up. (Acts 8:5-13) Such were the men chosen to oversee the material needs of widows. So the divinely authorized history of the early church inspires us to esteem seemingly nonspiritual administrative work as exalted service. How easy it is to underestimate a ministry.   I fear lest I fail to extol the most trivial act. Since doing the little we can to cheer hurting Christians is equivalent to cheering Christ himself, (Matthew 10:40-42; 25:35-40) to down-play such acts is to slight the King of kings. Moreover, a large part of Jesus’ earthly ministry was that of a servant. (Matthew 20:28; Luke 22:27; John 13:4-5) So in this sense, too, to regard a servant’s ministry as inferior, is to insult our Lord. Of course, the risen Christ left his servant duties behind with his grave clothes. Or did he? As John’s gospel closes we catch our final glimpse of the triumphant Lord of glory, and what is he doing? Cooking the disciples’ breakfast. (John 21:9-13)   In fact, Jesus taught that the supposedly lowly ministry of a servant is the route, not to obscurity, but to undying greatness. (Matthew 20:27; Luke 22:26; John 13:12-17)   Levites were the tabernacle’s cleaners, laborers, caretakers and door-keepers. Their tasks were the type people queue up to avoid. Yet not even prophets were recipients of holy tithes, like the Levites. (Numbers 18:21-23) Priests, whose duties were even more sacred, surrendered their lives to the odious drudgery of butchering livestock – beast after beast after beast. Even kings, on pain of death, were barred from priestly duties. It is almost as if the tasks we are inclined to disregard are the ones God chooses to exalt. (Luke 16:15)   Put bluntly, the main reason we undervalue many important ministries is worldliness. The world looks for human recognition. (Compare Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18; 23:2-12, 27-18; Luke 6:22-26) We do lip service, for example, to the power of prayer, yet view an evangelist basking in the limelight more favorably than the prayer-wrestler hidden in the back room. We exalt the virile missionary and sneer at the withered old lady whose paltry dollars God multiplied to carry that missionary to the field. If we’re blinded by carnality, heaven isn’t. To measure success in terms of human acclaim is to serve man, not God.   The most powerful ministry is probably intercession. And the world’s greatest intercessor could be the ‘no-body’ sitting next to you in church last Sunday. Only the spirit-realm comprehends what Christ’s sacred service agents accomplish behind closed doors and behind enemy lines.   What was the greatest event in human history? Jesus’ death. Yet in a sense, it was nothing. People wanted him killed; he let them. It was no epic of human endurance. He even failed to drag his cross the required distance. There was no display of artistic skill. Other religions find it offensive. Intellectuals ridicule it. (1 Corinthians 1:23) Yet, in God, it is of incalculable worth.   Since we are sufficiently enlightened to view Jesus’ ministry as God sees it, let’s endeavor to be equally enlightened about our own service.   The church has a million unsung heroes. Their exploits, unknown on earth, are the talk of heaven. These resolute, Christ-like conquerors cannot be bought. They refuse to trade eternal acclaim for temporal applause. Heaven’s megastars may be so inconspicuous, you’d think they’re in training for the Pew Warmer of the Year Award. No one would guess the shock-waves they send through Satan’s camp when these spiritual gladiators plunder his kingdom. Everyone scrambles to be in the limelight, except these saints: they  are  light – the light of the world.   Did You Know . . .    *  Most actors wanting the role of Long John Silver are hopelessly inadequate? They have too many legs.   *  Most people look like ridiculously overdressed, non-Japanese, anorexic sumo wrestlers?   *  When I was younger I could run faster than Carl Lewis? Over the years my superiority gradually waned, especially after baby Carl learned to walk.   I know what you’re thinking: I’ve finally blown a fuse upstairs. It was all a misunderstanding. They said success was just around the corner, so I went around the bend. Before you start sending get-well cards, however, let me assure you I’m as sane as anyone else here in the psychiatric ward. My point is this: whether you see yourself as gifted or queer, indispensable or inadequate, depends entirely on the frame of reference you choose. From God’s frame of reference – the life’s work he has chosen for you – no one is as perfectly endowed as you.   If that seems like soppy idealism, you have not thought it through. Do so, and it will become a treasured source of strength and comfort. You could choose any individual and fill volumes with what he or she cannot do or is hopeless at, but that’s of no more concern than the fact that a DVD player cannot fly, wash dishes, quench thirst, tie shoelaces, and prevent tooth decay. Besides the endless list of things a DVD player cannot do, many of the things it  can  do, it does poorly. It’s an inferior paperweight, straightedge, and bookend. You could use it as a fly-swatter – once. Such lists miss the critical point: anything skillfully designed is ideally equipped – and usually solely equipped – for the specific and commendable purpose for which it was made.   Did you hear about the man who inherited an old violin and an oil painting? Excitedly, he took it to a dealer for evaluation and to his amazement discovered he was the proud owner of a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt. Unfortunately, Stradivarius was an atrocious painter and Rembrandt’s violin was worthless.   An exceptionally attractive woman heard wedding bells whenever she thought of a brilliant composer. ‘With your brains and my looks,’ she told him, ‘what wonderful children we would have!’   Replied the composer, ‘Have you considered a child with my looks and your brains?’   Of course  you cannot do everything – that was never your Designer’s intention – but to imagine that your Creator and Savior will not fashion you  with   perfection  for your reason for existence, is to accuse your Maker of impotence and incompetence. Face facts: everything God does is impressive. For the exact role that he created you, you are superbly endowed.   Under-Rating Your Efforts   A well-loved hymn was nearly lost. Just in time, the only surviving manuscript was discovered in a rubbish bin. This was not the slip of a careless cleaner. It was a deliberate act. Someone had almost succeeded in defrauding God and countless people of a blessing.   After investigation, the offender finally confessed. It was the writer himself! John Henry Newman had judged his beautiful work as worthy only of destruction. One wonders how much such distorted judgment is the work of the Evil One.   ‘The devil is trying to make me think my talent is no good,’ Andraé Crouch confessed to Oral Roberts. He had just finished performing for Oral Roberts’ television program. If such a famous singer can be afflicted by these feelings, few of us can hope to avoid them.   Surprisingly, this fact constitutes a first line of defense. The Enemy gains an advantage if he can isolate us, convincing us our trial is unique. Scripture affirms that every type of temptation is normal. (1 Corinthians 10:13)   To prove how common it is to be blitzed by temptations to underrate ourselves, study the following enthralling, though drastically shortened list. Skim over it, if your need is superficial. If you are as dry as me, however, you will imbibe each instance, savoring every hope-giving drop.   *  In 1933, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote that nothing but failure lay ahead of him. (His biggest failure was his prophecy.)   *  He had no voice at all, said his teacher. Nevertheless, Enrico Caruso became the greatest opera singer of his day.   *  Beethoven’s music teacher declared him ‘hopeless’ at composing.   *  ‘Balding, skinny, can dance a little,’ they said of Fred Astaire at his first audition.   *  ‘What will they send me next!’ said Edmund Hillary’s gym instructor of the puny school boy now known as the man who conquered Mount Everest.   *  Said Professor Erasmus Wilson of Oxford University, ‘I think I may say without contradiction that when the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it, and no more will be heard of it.’   *  An invitation was extended to witness one of humanity’s most historic moments – the Wright brothers’ first flight in their heavier-than-air machine. Five people turned up.   *  Walt Disney was fired for ‘lacking ideas’.   *  H. B. Warner of Warner Brothers fame scoffed at the notion of ‘talkies.’ No one would want to hear movie actors talk.   *  Television, too, was once written off. It would never appeal to the average American family, pronounced the  New York Times .   *  ‘Sit down, young man, and respect the opinions of your seniors,’ chided the man of God. The seasoned pastor was just one of an army of saints opposed to this young upstart’s radical ideas. ‘If the Lord wants to convert the heathen, he can do it without your help.’ But William Carey (1761-1834) didn’t ‘sit down’. Instead, he spearheaded the modern missionary movement.   *  For years, Hudson Taylor tried to glean knowledge about China – a difficult task in his era. Then up jumped a chance to be advised by a missionary with experience in that very country.   ‘Why, you will never do for China!’ exclaimed the missionary. He glared at the blue-eyed youth, certain that the Chinese would find his features grotesquely alien. ‘They would run from you in terror! You could never get them to listen to you,’ he told the founder of the China Inland Mission.   *  It is Kenneth Pike’s genius as a linguist that earned him acclaim as ‘one of the great missionaries of the twentieth century’. He has been ranked with ‘the most brilliant and highly honored linguists of the twentieth century, recognized the world over in secular as well as Christian circles’. Inadequacy at language learning was cited as a major reason for his rejection as a missionary candidate. Humiliated, he continued writing to different mission boards until at last one did not reject him, and even they reportedly exclaimed, ‘Lord, couldn’t you have sent us something better than this?’   *  Mentally backward Max Raffler loved to paint. Over the years, as his paintings piled ever higher, his sisters would burn them to make room for more. Finally, when an old man, his artistic ability was recognized. The well-meaning sisters had destroyed paintings that would have sold for tens of millions of dollars. (Quick! Where are my finger paintings?)   *  It was the dead of night. A shadow slunk down the street. It was Charles with the dickens of a problem. He was off to mail his manuscript, huddling his guilty secret, petrified lest friends find out and ridicule him. The manuscript was rejected. More rejections pierced him before he won the hearts of millions with such classics as  Oliver Twist .   *  ‘All his discourses are redolent of bad taste, are vulgar and theatrical . . . ’ said a newspaper. Another paper described his preaching as ‘that of a vulgar colloquial, varied by rant . . .  All the most solemn mysteries of our holy religion are by him rudely, roughly and impiously handled . . . ’ They were referring to C. H. Spurgeon, the man routinely hailed as the prince of preachers. Moreover, they were writing after he had already attained immense popularity.   *  As Billy Graham preached, a missionary’s daughter battled an almost uncontrollable urge to run out of the meeting. It was his future wife, and it wasn’t conviction that made her squirm. It was her response to what she considered appalling preaching.   *  To these could be added a gaggle of other instances, too humorous to mention.   If only we could laugh in the midst of our trial. Coping with rejection and apparent failure is a serious matter. The tragic death of John Kennedy Poole screams this truth at anyone lucky enough to need an explanation. No publisher would touch Poole’s book. In a vain attempt to kill the pain, he suicided. Posthumously, his book was published. It won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.   But don’t knock the knockers. In its early stages, virtually every great achievement has seemed pathetically insignificant.   The pressures to undervalue your contribution may be even greater than Poole faced. Spiritual work, not secular writing, is the focus of Satan’s rage. Through Jesus, however, your power over oppression is greater still.   Glorious Failure   Moses was in ‘the backside of the desert’, says the King James Bible. (Exodus 3:1) I’d steer clear of that expression, but there might have been times when Moses was tempted to use it. The desert drop-out stood before the burning bush a broken man, haunted by his inadequacy. (Exodus 4:10-14) He was so long in the tooth, ivory hunters must have started asking after his health. And excuses! When God called him, this word-masher’s comeback was packed with more ‘buts’ than a church pew on Easter morning. As he tried to stammer home his point, he even had the audacity to imply that his deficiencies were bigger than God. What’s a stutter to the One who fashions mouths? What’s a mental block to the Maker of minds?   Poor old tongue-twister – one foot in the grave, and the other in his mouth. Yet it was Moses the word-slurping geriatric, not Moses the headstrong royal, who was on the brink of greatness.   Forty years earlier, fresh from his Egyptian education, strong in body, high in status and political pull, he was keen to help God’s people. But heaven had no use for a budding superstar. Heaven was waiting for a bumbling sheep-minder.   Viewed from the final side of the grave, everything tackled in one’s own strength fizzles. (Compare John 15:5) Only through God could Moses’ splash in time ripple for all eternity. Perhaps it took the full forty years for this realization to become an unshakeable conviction, but it was worth the wait. It became the secret of Moses’ strength, ridding him of the arrogant independence that would otherwise have fouled his service. He was the meekest man on earth. (Numbers 12:3 ff) This precious quality is adorned with exquisite promises.   ‘The meek will he guide . . . The meek will he teach his way.’ (Psalm 25:9)   ‘The meek will increase their joy in the Lord.’ (Isaiah 29:19)   ‘The meek will inherit the earth.’ (Matthew 5:5)   Humility – joyous dependence upon the Lord – is the road to honor. (Proverbs 15:33 b; James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6-7) The glitter at the end of other roads is a mirage. (Luke 14:11; Proverbs 16:25)   There was a young man with rashes; All that he touched turned to ashes. Yet marigolds, azaleas, Lily bulbs, and dahlias, All grew in those wonderful ashes.    (If you wrote poetry like this, you’d be humble, too.)   The issue of pride and humility is a deathtrap strewn with confusion and false concepts. Let’s clear this minefield before anyone else is hurt. We’ll begin with the analogy of a lamb in Bible times.   There’s a pride that says, ‘I can find better pasture than the Shepherd. I’ll always find water. I can handle bears, and lions are probably a myth invented by the Shepherd so he can dominate me.’   Few of us are in danger of such stupidity. Our danger is the independent spirit that says, ‘I adore my wonderful Shepherd, but that grass over the rise looks particularly juicy. I’ll just wander over. I’m growing up. I’ve been out of sight before and everything went fine. If a lion comes I’m sure I can bleat loud enough and the Shepherd can run fast enough . . . ’   There’s an attitude masquerading as humility that beats itself miserable. ‘I’m dumb. I’m ugly. I’m hopeless.’ Give no room to this imposter. But there’s a humility that rejoices in the certainty that the Shepherd knows best. Having abandoned faith in itself or in luck, it puts all its hope in the Shepherd, believing that to leave him out of sight for a second is to flirt with disaster. This virtue hugs the Shepherd, delighting in his every whisper, feasting on his goodness. Sometimes humility is led over rocky terrain but ultimately it enjoys the best pasture and the highest security. Not only is it not mauled by predators, it produces the best wool and the best offspring. It sometimes staggers up hills to stay with its Shepherd but it frolics in the warmth of the Shepherd’s love.   The Critics   No one who always surrenders to criticism will achieve anything significant for God. There is no type of music, for example, which appeals to every Christian. Suppose ninety-nine percent of people find your ministry atrocious. If your band played at an anti-nuclear rally, they wouldn’t know whether to ban the bomb or bomb the band. What should you do? Assuming they are reacting to your style, and not spurning spiritual truth, it would seem desirable to serenade the one percent when the others were out of earshot. That should make the unappreciative less inclined to consider a lynching. However, I have established in  Feel Useless? Help for “Hopeless Losers”  that heaven does not measure a ministry by the number of people influenced.   If you appeal only to a minority, it could well be a minority that is not being reached by other means. If so, the church would be poorer without your specialized ministry. Heaven’s approval outlasts earth’s applause.   Even if I spent hours producing something I liked, I used to worry others wouldn’t like it. But that was five minutes ago. Now, I’m learning to trust God.   Though bent by Adam’s crash and bashed by my own sin, God gave me my personality with its tastes, and for years I’ve been looking to him to mold me. So I believe that somewhere are people with cerebral plumbing like mine. They will appreciate my style and are most likely the ones God has called me to minister to. Should there be millions of them, I’ll be famous; if only a few, I’ll blend with the wallpaper. But it won’t affect God’s view of me. If popularity is a valid measure of success, our deserted Lord was a failure.   Take my poetry (not everyone can take it). I actually found someone who  likes  it (and they have pretty good poems at pre-school these days). Audience-wise, that’s all I need to validate my ministry. What would it matter if everyone regarded my admirer and me as literary nincompoops? I’d rather win an illiterate to Christ than be hailed a genius. The person who appreciates my poetry is just as precious to God, just as worthy a recipient of ministry, as all the critics.   ‘Experts’ regularly berate the simplicity of Fanny Crosby’s hymns. It is said she had the literary skill to silence her critics but she deliberately simplified her songs to meet more powerfully the needs of the distressed, the infirm and the poorly educated.   That does not mean I can be lax. To limit oneself to a particular style can be very demanding but because Fanny considered it the most effective way to reach her target audience she strove for perfection within this framework.   Since my actions reflect on my Creator and Redeemer, living below my best tarnishes God’s glory. In Christ, however, my best is powerful. Within the framework God sets me, my best, nothing more and nothing less, is just what the Father ordered. Too bad if people think I’d be a greater blessing selling inflatable dart-boards. If God has commissioned me, that’s all that matters. And if my poems make Shakespeare turn in his grave, I’ll assume he needs the exercise. If it turns the experts off their food, I’ll be the envy of the weight loss industry.   You don’t like my humor either? It makes you want to  what ? Well, if it’s that bad, how come you’ve read so much? Oh. Well, how was I to know you would open the book at this very page? I was going to produce a book you couldn’t put down but I couldn’t figure out how to stop the superglue from setting until the critical moment.   It’s a gift. Some people turn heads, I turn stomachs. Stomachs are important, too. Being a stomach specialist (I could market myself as the kingdom’s gastroenterologist) need not automatically disqualify my writing. I could still be in business if all humanity despised my writings. I know of at least one person soundly converted by a song he loathed.   You needn’t concern yourself with such extremes, however. We are often so over-awed by God’s moral standards that we overlook other aspects of his nature. Our Lord is Creator as well as Savior, and the Maker of rainbows and nightingales didn’t suddenly lose his creative urge at the close of Day Six. God’s creativity is inexhaustible. And you were made for him. He longs to express his creativity through you. As an instrument and musician together make beautiful music, you and your Lord can unite to create exquisite beauty. What you can do together defies imagination. You make an awesome team.   Yield to Christ, like a brush to the artist, and from your life will flow unearthly beauty.   Climax   Too often I think and act as if the darkness of my inadequacy could extinguish the brilliance of Christ. I have seen myself as a failure and I have seen the results of such thinking. Now I endeavor to see myself as a born failure, born again a success. That’s scriptural. Without Christ I am brain-frozen with inadequacy. But I am not without Christ. I am tired of being hauled through the sludge by my former view of myself. I had backed off so far from the monster of pride that I had almost fallen into the ditch of despair, dragging God’s glory with me. Though I hate egotism, I must hate doubt with equal passion.   Hailed as the forerunner of Protestant missionary glory, the missionary pioneers’ hero, the Bible translators’ inspiration, William Carey founded several schools, translated Scripture into forty-four languages and dialects, established missions in India, Burma and Bhutan, was appointed professor of Oriental languages by the Governor-general and became an authority on Indian agriculture and horticulture. Yet he reached these heights not on the wings of genius, but on plodding feet; not by bursts of inspiration but by a determined, daily slog. It was as a plodder that Carey wanted to be remembered. ‘To this,’ insisted the great achiever, ‘I owe everything.’ When he headed for India, his wife had refused to go, his church resisted the move, and his parents thought he was mad. He plodded on. In India he was lonely, poverty-stricken and spiritually barren. When his son died, Carey was too ill to bury him and so friendless he almost despaired of finding anyone to assist in the burial. He plodded on. For the first seven years, there was not one convert. He was strongly opposed by governmental and commercial authorities. He had coerced his wife to join him, but she became mentally deranged and grew progressively worse. He plodded on. He had left for India, having failed as a farm laborer, a shoemaker, a school-teacher, a preacher, a husband and a father, but the old trail blazer left for heaven a master of plodding.   Our spiritual forebears can so motivate us that the furnace they endured can harden the steel in our own spines. Let’s look at a few and see if it works.   Though he died before the Reformation, Luther honored Savonarola with the title of Protestant martyr. Savonarola preached, pouring out his soul to congregations of less than twenty-five. The impact could hardly have been less had even those few stayed away. It slowly dawned with heart-crushing certainty that whatever gifts he had, preaching was not one of them. He reverted to teaching convent novices. Later, he again thought he should face the daunting task that had so devastated him. Again his preaching made little impression. He continued, and in time the great Duomo cathedral was so incapable of containing the eager throngs flocking to hear him that queues regularly formed in the middle of the night, waiting for hours for the doors to open.   Clarence Jones’ dream of a South American Christian radio station was known in his local church as ‘Jones’s folly’. Hurt, but not defeated, he invested in an exploratory trip to South America, praying for the Lord to do ‘great and mighty things’. Instead, heaven slammed doors in his face. He courted government officials in Venezuela, then Columbia, then Panama, then Cuba. All refused him.   He returned home in agony to acquaintances who continued to laugh, and to a wife who was secretly elated about the failure. Finally, it got too much. He decided to chuck his family and local Christians by joining the navy. The navy rejected him too.   Eventually he met a missionary couple who claimed that Ecuador was the place to go. He had no sooner received the necessary government clearances than he learned from officials and radio engineers that the site was utterly unsuitable for radio. The mountains and proximity to the equator were insurmountable obstacles to acceptable transmission. Yet it seemed God’s leading, so ‘Jones’s folly’ continued.   In 1931 his 250-watt transmitter in a sheep shed beamed its first message. Many missionaries were strongly opposed to the whole idea of Christian radio, but people were at least curious. That day, every radio in the country was tuned in. That’s right; all  thirteen.   Donations fell off due to the Depression. In the entire year of 1932, he received less than a thousand dollars. In 1933 the bank through which he operated folded. Then the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, the mainstay of his mission’s support, went bankrupt. As he staggered on, it began to be said that you could hear the sounds of his station from behind doors displaying  Protestants Not Welcome  signs.   In 1940 he expanded to a 10,000 watt transmitter and started receiving letters from New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Russia . . . . Contrary to expert opinion, he had located on one of the best spots for radio transmission on the entire planet. He later moved up to half a million watts and ‘Jones’s folly’ became one of the Christian wonders of the world.   ‘It seems as though everything I do is wrong,’ cried Gladys Aylward in a letter from China. Great men and women of God often long to quit, but they wobble on. (E.g., Jeremiah 20:7-8) When they are hit, they bounce – like flat footballs usually, but enough to stay in the game. After a while they are pumped up again and their erratic zigzag course resumes that vaguely goalward trajectory that sends angelic cheer-leaders wild.   Success is failure that tried one more time. As we look to God and courageously move ahead, stumbling blocks turn to stepping stones to a beautiful ministry. Not only are apparent failures rarely the disasters we imagine, they are often not even failures. God’s definition of success may be far more generous than you imagine.

Help for People with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.) Also Known as Multiple Personality Disorder (M.P.D.)     Healing and Wholeness for Alters (Alters are Also Known as Insiders) Part 2 Start at Part 1 Alters eventually need to realize that they are alters, and with some alters, the sooner they are told, the happier they will be but, as will become clearer later, one must be very prayerful about how and when to tell them.   The following is what I tell older alters, to help them understand who they are (simpler language is needed for young alters). I place it here because it might further clarify your understanding of alters. It is important to read the rest of this series of webpages, however, to understand the risks involved in revealing this information to alters too soon.   Through no fault of your own you suffered something very traumatic. It is probably your first memory. This was so upsetting that it caused a temporary form of amnesia. With this type of memory loss you don’t forget all of the past, only part of it. In fact, you recall some of the past so vividly that it seems to be much more recent than it actually is. It’s rather like being Rip Van Winkle, who slept for years and when he woke up what seemed like yesterday was actually many years ago and the world had moved on without him being aware of it. It might be, for instance, that today’s date is much later than you suppose. What year do you think this is? I can show you a calendar or newspaper to prove to you the correct date if you wish. You probably also lost memory of your life before the trauma. Even if you have a good memory up until the present, there are probably many years of childhood memories that you are currently cut off from.   You are presently conscious of an important, irreplaceable part of you, but there is more to you than you are presently aware of. You have memories that you cannot currently access because the trauma you suffered caused you to become disconnected from the rest of yourself. You disconnected in a courageous attempt to protect the rest of you from dealing with the upsetting experience you suffered, but since that event the rest of you has gained information and skills that will comfort you and allow you to heal. Though you have fractured, this brokenness can be restored. Other parts of you can tell you things about you that you currently don’t know. Better still, those memories and skills you have temporarily lost will become your very own when you reconnect with the rest of you. Other parts of you might seem like other people but they share your body.   This disconnectedness has previously caused isolated parts of you to have little awareness of you, or little understanding of who you are. This lack of understanding could have caused them to treat you with less love and respect than you deserve. If so, this is most unfortunate, and they probably already regret their mistake and as they get to know you they will certainly regret any hurt they have caused.   It is harder to put this in terms that a little child would understand but if you wish to read an attempt, see here: Explaining to a child alter who he/she is.   The Horror of Being a Child Alter   It is hard to conceive of a more tortured existence than that of an alter living in an adult body and yet trapped in the years of childhood. When treated kindly and wisely, alters can find total relief, but unless they receive the attention and comfort they deserve, their pain will never end this side of the grave. Moreover, unless people with alters learn how to avoid making things worse, they will almost inevitably create still more sources of suffering for their already severely traumatized alters.   No matter how much people might despise the fact that they have alters, they must face the obvious reality that no one can have peace while a part of him/her is reeling in pain. To live in denial, and ignore the needs of one’s alters will only perpetuate, and quite possibly intensify, one’s anguish. We’ll look at how to give alters the help and comfort they need.   For insight into how much child alters typically suffer, try vividly imagining being in the following endless nightmare.   You are three years old and have not only suffered deeply damaging trauma, you are endlessly reliving it. As if this were not enough torment, you are trapped in an adult body, which results in the perpetual horror of you being as real as anyone else and yet treated as nothing. You are despised by all of the few people in the world who are vaguely aware of you, and you are sure their reaction proves you are a hideous freak.   You cannot let a single person see you play or giggle or cry. Anyone – you know of no exceptions – catching a glimpse of you acting your age will ignorantly but sincerely conclude that you are literally insane, or at the very least, abnormal. Even children think it weird to see an adult acting like a child, and children are usually quick to speak their mind. So you dare not talk to anyone or even let them chance upon seeing you act in any way that for you is natural.   You feel forced to all sorts of extremes to hide from everyone, and yet you have the desperate human need to end psychologically damaging isolation. Moreover, how can you avoid making your embarrassing presence felt? You might not even be potty trained. Imagine, if you dare, the implications of someone in an adult body having that problem.   You might not have grasped that when people see you, they see the body of an adult. (The common blindness of alters to the true nature of the body they live in is only slightly more extreme than that of a dangerously thin anorexic seeing herself as fat.) If you believe you have a child’s body when you don’t, you won’t understand people’s disgust at you acting as a child and so you will take their reaction even more personally. And if you live in the body of a menstruating woman, you will be disturbed that someone very close to you bleeds. No one has ever explained to you that this is not a life-threatening illness. If you have grasped that it is your body that is bleeding, you could be even more distressed. And having the body of a sexually mature woman might subject you to more sexual advances that terrify you.   It might be that the one person hardest to be utterly invisible to – the host person in whose adult body you live, the one who best understands you and should be your greatest ally – finds you such an embarrassment that he or she hates you and, it seems, would literally kill you, given half the chance.   You have not only a normal child’s craving for hugs and touch but your trauma accentuates this need. Nevertheless, you either find yourself in the body of a person who doesn’t get nearly the degree of touch that you as a distressed child need, or you are sentenced to live in the body of a married person who receives touch that is traumatically inappropriate for a child. More alarming still, sexual abuse is quite likely the very trauma that made you an alter in the first place.   You could find yourself repeatedly exposed to movies, conversations and behavior that might be acceptable for adults but are deeply upsetting or even terrifying for a three year old.   To magnify every source of agony: you find yourself, through no fault of your own, in the devastating predicament of being unable to grow up. This means that unless someone at last recognizes your needs and helps you mature mentally, you must suffer all this loneliness, rejection and devastatingly low self-esteem, not merely for the length of a normal childhood but for twenty, thirty, forty or more years.   It can be deeply disturbing when you finally learn that you are actually part of a much older person. Suddenly you no longer feel you know who you are. How should you act now that you know you are not really a child but you still feel like one and you still like doing what others regard as childish things? Realizing that you are decades older than you thought could mean the shattering of many cherished dreams. So much you had hoped for as a child has either already passed or you now know can never happen.   It’s not just young alters that can suffer greatly from the way their hosts and/or other people treat them. Consider, for example, an average man who has an alter who believes he is female. Imagine how that alter would be treated, both by the man and by everyone else.   Deepening our Understanding of Alters   Suppose a man suffered trauma at age two, then had a separate trauma at age five, another at six and another at age twenty. The person could have an alter formed at age two, with acute memories of traumas suffered at that age, and an additional alter at age five, another at six and another at age twenty, while yet another part of the person (usually referred to as the host) is at the man’s real age. Although an alter forms at a specific age, the alter usually has a range of memories from that time until a different trauma occurs, in which case, an additional alter could be formed and the other alter might go into hiding for decades. Alternatively, the alter could continue to come out to perform certain tasks but in go into hiding at other times.   Consider a middle aged man with an alter whose memory is limited to when he was five years old. When this alter speaks out loud, he would have to use the man’s vocal cords. Except for the sound of his voice, however, (and even that might betray subtle differences within the limitations of man’s vocal range) you would swear you were communicating with a five year old (until the alter begins to mature).   It has been said that child alters have the short attention span of a child, but there is more to it than that. Regardless of how old they were when they formed, alters may on occasion be able to tolerate only a few second’s conversation due to overwhelming feelings of confusion, anxiety or emotional (either positive or negative) overload.   Alters formed at certain times are likely to develop specific skills. So some people, though not all, have alters assigned to specific tasks. For example, one alter might almost always take over when public speaking is required, another might predominate when parenting skills are needed, and so on. Some alters might also take on specific roles in supporting fellow alters. For example, one might act as a protector, and another might bear the overflow of pain whenever other alters can tolerate no more.   Alters that have kept themselves in deep isolation usually have Rip-Van-Winkle-like memory gaps. Once they surface, however, they are capable of picking up new information and skills. Ceasing to be deeply buried is usually dependent upon them feeling safe. Once this happens it is as though they are activated. They can then be specifically addressed and taught new things. They might also happen to overhear relevant conversations that help them learn, but unless they are conversed with directly, there is no guarantee that they are listening. As an openness to the host and other alters develops, an alter broadens his or her skills and knowledge (often quite rapidly) and becomes increasingly like the full person. For example, a child alter that is accepted and understood by the host will usually mature at a much faster rate than a child would. The remarkable speed is not merely because the alter is growing up or learning new things; the alter is learning how to access the host’s mental abilities. The rigid wall between the alter and the rest of the person is coming down.   Hosts typically have a degree of control over which alters are active but their control has limits. For example, an alter might at any specific time be asleep (even though the host is awake), or might be away with God, or temporarily too traumatized to speak, or simply feel a need for time-out. Or an alter might choose to remain silent because he/she considers there is insufficient privacy or does not trust someone who might overhear him/her. On the other hand, alters sometimes manifest themselves without their host’s permission and sometimes without even the host’s knowledge. For example, to conceal their actions from their host or avoid being restrained by the host, alters sometimes deliberately put their hosts to sleep before manifesting themselves. One alter said she would achieve this by whispering repeatedly to her host, “You’re getting s-l-e-e-p-y.” Another seemed able to achieve this more rapidly and called it “pulling the plug” on the host’s consciousness.   It is desirable for hosts to emphasize to all alters that there are dangers associated with them taking over in public without checking with the host as to how safe doing so would be. Alters who have only limited experience in relating to the outside world in an adult body could drive without appropriate skills, become physically lost, get needlessly freaked out by misinterpreting someone’s actions, say inappropriate things to adults, and so on. If alters understand the need for their host’s guidance and know that the host will give them as much “body time” time (when they control the body) as practical, they will usually keep safe and not embarrass their host.   Besides differing in apparent age, alters within the same person can differ in personal tastes, abilities, character strengths, weaknesses, fears and so on. Some alters are likely to intensely dislike other alters and/or the host. That’s not surprising when we consider how many of us seem to hate ourselves, at least sometimes during our lives. Nevertheless, perceived rejection or ill-feeling between a person’s alters can be very damaging and significantly delay healing. If an alter is angry at other alters and upsetting them, it would probably be worthwhile giving that alter much attention, listening to him/her, comforting him/her, and so on. Seek to calm the alter and gradually coax the alter to be more positively disposed towards the others. Alters formed by the trauma of sexual abuse might be sexually disturbed and it is not impossible for one alter to “sexually molest” another. Alters are also able to “hit” each other and inflict what feels like physical pain. The assaults might not actually be physical but they can seem as real as nightmares seem while you are still sleeping.   My Blunders With Alters   Revealing the full truth to alters is, to say the least, a delicate matter. Even the positive aspects are mind-boggling, such as suddenly learning that dreaded events are already in the past. There are also distressing aspects, such as learning that joyfully anticipated events like graduations and parenthood have already gone. It is helpful to explain to alters that they have actually enjoyed some anticipated events and that they will gradually gain full memory of these positive events. Often, however, the truth brings the crushing news that some cherished dreams will never materialize. This news can be so traumatic that an alter could even split yet again because of it.   As God told a young alter, if anything is really lost – no matter what – God is able to make up for it seven fold. In the short term, however, this solace might seem so inadequate that alters could turn suicidal over shattered dreams, just because someone made them realize the nature of reality without adequately preparing them for it.   Since alters are already deeply hurting, conversing with alters is like massaging people who have invisible wounds randomly scattered over their body. Your massage can bring them great relief but with the slightest slip their pain will skyrocket.   I was casually talking with a friend, when suddenly an alter of hers began speaking to me for the first time ever. Eager to understand who this alter is, I asked her age. She didn’t seem to know. I asked what her earliest memories were and I couldn’t seem to get an answer. Trying to get a rough idea of her “age,” I asked if she recalled a certain key event in my friend’s life and suddenly I loathed myself, desperately wishing I could have taken back my words. I had foolishly mentioned a key but distressing event in her host’s life that this alter had been unaware of until my blunder. Yes, alters need to know everything eventually, but my timing – mentioning it as soon as she first revealed herself – was most inappropriate, and highly disturbing for the alter.   On another occasion, I tried to comfort an alter who thought she was only four but felt compelled to help her host in adult tasks that were taxing for a little child. My intentions could not have been more admirable in gently explaining that she really isn’t four, but for days this dear alter was so crushed by what she perceived as the implications, that she wished she were dead and refused to speak to me or to God, her best friend. The alter eventually came to terms with what had slipped from my mouth but my timing was particularly atrocious because right then all of the woman’s other alters were reeling with pain and confusion over another issue.   Alters’ deep fear of rejection (the consequence of very real and bitter experiences), keeps them terrified of what might happen if anyone they do not fully trust learns anything about them. In addition, they usually feel a great responsibility to do their utmost to protect the rest of the person from pain. Rightly or wrongly, this typically includes feeling obligated to keep distressing information secret from their hosts or fellow alters. So alters usually take deep offense at anyone betraying their confidence by letting slip any details about them – even their mere existence – to anyone else. Despite me knowing this, I suggested to a friend that he begin to inform his wife about alters by handing her some general information about Dissociative Identity Disorder. I thought this safe because there was nothing in the information about his own alters, nor even the suggestion that he himself had alters, but to my dismay, this simple act done without consulting his alters caused one of them to feel deeply betrayed and to be furious with his host for days.   I’ve also had two unfortunate instances stemming from not realizing who I was speaking with. In the first instance, an alter who at the time was completely unknown to me was tentatively reaching out to me while pretending to be another alter. The other time, I assumed I was communicating with the host when it was actually a recently-surfaced alter.   It is common for alters not to identify themselves, sometimes because they are shy and sometimes simply because they don’t consider how difficult it is for people to distinguish between alters who share the same body and vocal cords. The problem is that a person’s alters usually differ markedly from each other. An alter who believes she is three will think and act very differently to an alter formed as a teenager who, in turn, will differ greatly from a middle-aged host. Likewise, an alter who has only recently surfaced will be very different to one who has travelled much further on the healing journey. These differences mean that the same behavior that would represent a praiseworthy advance for one alter might indicate a disappointing regression if displayed by another alter.   We instinctively adjust our expectations according to who we believe we are talking to. If someone is acting more childlike or less intelligent or less Christian than we have come to expect for that person, we are likely to register our surprise with a mild rebuke or remark that the alter we think we are talking to would take in his or her stride but could deeply wound an alter who is at a very different stage of the healing journey.   Alters need to know that failing to identify themselves, rather than being the extra-safe way of testing the waters that they suppose, is the very thing that exposes them to the greatest danger of getting hurt. They will inevitably do it from time to time, however, even if merely because they forget that it is not obvious to others which alter is speaking.   In the worst of my blunders, alters recovered within a few days. The alters later said that the fact that they knew I genuinely cared for them helped them forgive me. Writes one of them:   Yes, people make mistakes, but once we alters understand that this is very hard, not just on us but on you, we can help you deal with the challenges as you help us deal with our pain.   But though I used to pride myself in being tactful and considerate, I quickly discovered that alters are so hyper-sensitive that my best attempts to help are like trying to trim toenails with a chainsaw.   Alters desperately need help. Doing nothing could be more cruel and dangerous than the most serious blunder. So caving into the difficulties and giving up trying to help alters is not a compassionate option. The need for courage in befriending alters is as immense as the need for superhuman wisdom.   Even the famous counsellor, teacher and author, Dr. Neil T Anderson, writes in his book  Set Free  (page 219) about the most basic aspect of ministering to alters – distinguishing alters from demons:   Sometimes it is difficult even if you have a lot of experience and spiritual discernment. Even the most experienced and mature people can be deceived. I certainly have been.   Since I have yet to find an infallible therapist to whom I could relinquish the task, I can only pray more, and trust myself less, and lean heavily upon God. Here’s a Scripture everyone relating to alters needs to pray often:   Psalms 141:3  Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.   Jesus: the Perfect Alter   An alter told one of Jake’s alters:   You exist as a separate part of Jake because Jake was pushed beyond human endurance. Then you come along like a lifeboat. You were loaded up with pain and set to sail. So was I. It wasn’t our fault.   This almost exactly describes the role of a scapegoat. The term “scapegoat” has entered everyday speech via the Old Testament. It has surprisingly much to tell us. Once a year, to atone for sin, two goats were chosen. One of them was sacrificed, paying the ultimate price for the nation’s sins. Of course, most of the nation’s sins were essentially average and yet in the final analysis each sin took no less than the death penalty for the blame to be fully resolved and extinguished. The remaining goat – called the scapegoat – stayed alive. Like the other goat, it was utterly innocent of any human sin, but after the sacrificial death of the other one, the sins of the entire nation were symbolically placed on its head and it was driven into the desert, symbolically taking the sins away from the people, never to be seen again (Leviticus 16:5-22).   Animal sacrifices, though hopelessly inadequate to resolve our guilt problems, were divinely instituted to point prophetically to the one sacrifice that can meet our souls’ deepest needs. The sacrifice to end all sacrifices would have to be human, since it is humans who are blameworthy. But to end all blame, the perfect sacrificial victim would, like the goats, have to be utterly blameless. Unless he had absolute moral perfection – like no other human the world has ever seen – a human sacrifice would be worthless. Since anyone who sins deserves to die, if any of us were to volunteer as a sacrifice we would only be suffering what we ourselves deserve, not suffering for the sins of others. The only perfect sacrifice is the One of whom John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”   The entire Old Testament sacrificial system was ordained by God to prepare his people for the Savior of the world so that they would understand what our Lord achieved by dying on the cross. He is the embodiment and fulfillment of the whole Jewish sacrificial system. So when God instituted the use of a scapegoat, he was helping his people understand Jesus, who is the ultimate scapegoat.   That  two  goats were needed to atone for the nation’s sins – one dying and then the other released alive – points not only to the removal of our sins but to the death and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus. Not just Jesus’ death but also his resurrection were needed to resolve utterly the guilt and eternal consequences of humanity’s offenses. Just as Jesus rose to a new life, so he has the power to give us a new life, after fully extinguishing all of our blame and shame.   Humanity’s only true Innocent took upon himself all the blame, letting himself be stripped naked and abused to death so that you could have his peace and purity, and rise with him to a breathtakingly new life that begins here and now.   I am frequently deeply moved by the selfless, sacrificial way in which alters voluntarily take hurts and rejection upon themselves in order to protect the rest of the person. Like the perfect alter, Jesus wants to take upon himself all the guilt, all the horror, and all the shame you have ever suffered. He wants every trace of filth and pain and rejection to be dumped on him until it kills him, because in killing him, its power to hurt you is also killed.   If you were living in ancient Israel, it would not just be  your  sin that was symbolically placed on the scapegoat, but the sins of the entire nation. Even more astounding, the sins of the entire world were actually placed on Jesus when he agonized on the cross. This is significant. Usually, alters hurt, not because of their own sin, nor even the sin of their host, but because of the sins of an abuser or some other cruel person. There is no need even to work out exactly who is at fault and to what degree, however, because  all  the sin and  all  the blame and shame were put on the ultimate Scapegoat. Alters do the best they can but no alter can totally remove all blame, shame and pain. The host still feels some of it. And even if an alter could perfectly achieve full peace for the host, what about the alter? What can be done to relieve the alter’s own suffering?   We have noted that the pain an alter bears is almost never the alter’s fault. The source of the hurt is the sins of others, and he/she bears the pain, sacrificing his/her own well-being for the sake of the host. This is Jesus’ role. Being God, he – and he alone – can do it to perfection. And he does it for all of humanity. For an alter to hold on to the pain is to suffer unnecessarily (which would break God’s heart) and to render Jesus’ torturous death a waste, as far as both the alter and host are concerned.   Dumping pain upon an innocent alter is an act of desperation that can keep a person alive until he/she finds God’s perfect remedy: Jesus. Asking an alter to bear pain is at best an emergency measure only. Like putting chewing gum on a leaking fuel tank, as a tiny aircraft is in flight, it could save someone temporarily, but something more effective needs to be done as soon as possible. It is vital that alters be relieved of their pain as quickly as possible, both for their sake and so that their hosts can receive full healing.   Jesus is the alter  par excellence ; literally the alter’s alter. For both the host and all alters, Jesus bore all the horrific consequences of sin, completely removing all the blame, pain and shame, destroying it all by his own death, so that none of it could ever come back to hurt the host or any of the alters.   Please don’t let familiarity with the following Scripture rob you of its full impact. Read slowly and prayerfully what it says of Jesus, the perfect alter:   Isaiah 53:3-6  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.   Jesus took upon himself full punishment for every sin that has ever been committed. He was betrayed, disowned, spat on, stripped naked, made a public spectacle of, shamed, laughed at, degraded, slapped, punched, flayed alive, spiritually cursed (Galatians 3:13), rejected by his people and by God (Mark 15:34), tortured to death for  you . He bore  your  rejection,  your  heartache,  your  humiliation. For you, he took the pain, the shame and the blame.   God’s plan has always been that we offload our pain on to him, not upon an alter.   1 Peter 5:7  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.   Psalms 55:22  Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you . . .   When alters were formed, the host did not understand the implications of this truth, but now it can be explained to alters so that they can be relieved of all their torment by handing over to the Lord their pain, distress, and secrets, letting the Lord of glory, who lovingly volunteered to be humanity’s scapegoat, bear it all on the cross and annihilate it with his own death. Then alters can be free to enjoy life and can help hurting parts of their host, not by personally bearing hurts and secrets, but by encouraging fellow alters to lay all their pains and burdensome secrets upon the crucified Lord and rise in the triumphant new life of our resurrected Lord.   Healing your Alter   Every reader will benefit from the next few paragraphs, but in particular I would like to address every reader who has Dissociative Identity Disorder.   1 Corinthians 6:17  But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.   Ephesians 5:30  for we are members of his body.   John 15:4-5  . . . No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.   Just as an alter and host are an inseparable part of each other, Jesus is an essential part of every true Christian. And just as an alter endeavors to remove pain from him/her host, Jesus longs to remove your pain. Infinitely more effective than any alter, however, Jesus has the power to fully absorb and kill in his own body every sinful act that has ever hurt you.   Sin is the issue because anyone hurting or violating you has violated God’s loving laws and sinned against someone God passionately loves – you. The Bible uses various word pictures to portray how utterly Jesus will remove from you the sins that have hurt you. In an era when ocean depths were as inaccessible as the furthest star, Scripture speaks of God burying sin in the deepest sea (Micah 7:19). In another part, it speaks of sin being removed as far as the east is from the west (Psalms 103:12).   The ultimate Scapegoat longs to put an infinity between you and everything that has ever hurt you. However, because God is not a thief and is the exact opposite of an abuser, his lofty morality and deep respect for you compels him to hold back until you give him full permission to take your pain from you. And because God is a God of love and truth, he cannot operate in an atmosphere of denial and mistrust. He waits to be welcomed into your deepest secrets and pains so that he can do what he yearns to do – gently and lovingly remove everything that is hurting you.   Of course, the Almighty already knows everything that has happened to you, and every good and bad way you have responded. Not only will he not be offended or shocked, he will cherish you sharing with him painful, frightening or disgusting things that are so significant to you that you find them hard to speak about. Because he loves you unreservedly in utter purity, unselfishness and respect for you, God treasures you telling him all about these things. He esteems you sharing the intimate details as proof of your love and trust.   Not only does the Lord have every answer you desperately need, he is tender and gentle. He reels in pain when you suffer needlessly by you holding on to burdens and distress that Jesus has already suffered to make their removal possible. Christ exposes his heart when he cried, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34). He agonizes for you, yearning for you to stop living in denial or backing off from his tender compassion.   I know it takes great courage for you to hand your secrets over to him. You’ve been let down and ridiculed by people for as long as you can remember. You fear God might be like all those other humans, but wait a moment: God isn’t human. His warm, personal love and tender devotion and faithfulness to you is flawless. He has none of the sinful, selfish, fickle ways of the people who have hurt you. Make Jesus’ day: let him extinguish in his own tortured body your burning grief and pain.   If it were with any pride that I told Alice’s alter of my new revelation about Jesus being the alter’s alter, it was short-lived. It turned out that God had already told her that a couple of days earlier. In yet another e-mail to one of Jake’s alters, she wrote:   I was sitting on the sofa this morning reading in the Bible about Jesus’ death when Jesus appeared and knelt down in front of me. He pointed out that his torture lasted all night. He was naked, he was beaten, he was rejected and shamed. They mocked his body.   I asked him if any of his suffering was sexual. He said, “I was a naked target. What do you think?”   He was betrayed and hurt beyond words. His friends denied him. They were ashamed of him. He was sold for money to be tortured.   Jesus leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “I know.” He let those words sink in. “I know all the pain you have suffered and I have been through it.”   He is holy and glorified. He has won and he knows the way to victory. His scars are a badge of honor that he took that pain. Just as we took the pain so that our host could move on, Jesus took the pain so that we can move on. He is our alter. I don’t feel alone and scared anymore. I have an alter to bear my pain.   Being pain-free is really wonderful. When two of Alices’ other alters got upset recently, I wasn’t so full of pain that I couldn’t help them. I was able to bring them to Jesus. It was amazing.   This dear alter is finding increasing fulfillment in using her insights gained as an alter to minister in the power of Christ to other alters. Interestingly, her host has an intercessory calling upon her life. True intercessors sometimes feel intensely the pain of others but they don’t hold on to the pain. Their privileged task is to bring that pain to Christ and leave the pain with the One who suffered to set people free.   When we are in too much pain to think straight, we long for a quick fix in which all memory of painful events vanishes. Nevertheless, people with Dissociative Identity Disorder know that this simply does not work. They tried to kill memories and some almost seemed to achieve it for a while, but it brought them no real peace. We need to be free from pain but we need to retain our dignity and humanity by being able to mentally come to terms with the experience.   Moreover, for the memory to disappear would render all our past tragedies a useless waste. Our tears are too precious to God for him to let them be shed in vain. He longs not only to remove our pain but to transform our past suffering into something valuable, even as Jesus’ suffering is of inestimable value. People who have let God heal them of Dissociative Identity Disorder find themselves uniquely placed to understand the power and compassion of God and to bring this tender love and healing to other hurting people. They find themselves co-laborers with Almighty God, doing things of eternal significance for people who are of infinite value to the God of love. They know that their past tragedies have uniquely empowered them for this intensely fulfilling privilege and they will spend eternity in awe at how God turned something that hurt God horrifically – your own suffering – into something that brings them endless glory.   Various Types of Alters   I will not attempt to categorize every possible type, but awareness of certain types of alters can significantly speed healing. Not everyone with D.I.D. has every type mentioned below, but being aware of the possibility could enable you to discover and help such an alter much quicker.   Protector Alters   Protector alters shield other alters by putting on a tough front and trying to force to back down anyone they see as a threat. Tragically, they suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which causes them to often see danger where there is none. The easiest understood instance of PTSD is a soldier who upon returning from the front line to the safety of home is still on hyper-alert, unable to sleep property, diving for cover whenever a car backfires, and so on.   So protector alters are hyper-vigilant and much more suspicious than current circumstances require. The alters the protector seek to shield usually accept the protector’s assessment of danger, and even if they do not, the protector still usually tries to get them into hiding at the first perception of danger.   Unfortunately, protectors often hinder healing by assessing counsellors as threats. They can also perceive their host as a threat and so keep alters and/or information hidden from their host. A host can be perceived as a threat if he/she might blab things the protector believe should be kept secret or if the host is not cautious enough, and so on.   Even though these dear alters might initially hinder – or even sabotage – the healing process, they are not enemies. Even if their help is sometimes misguided, they are highly traumatized, self-sacrificing alters courageously trying their utmost to keep the person safe.   Do all you can to work with, rather than against, a protector. Continually strive to get the protector on-side and to allay all the protector’s concerns. Even empower the protector, giving him/her right of veto.   As the protector gradually learns to trust you, much progress can be made in discovering other alters. Once on board, protectors are very valuable allies in the healing process.   Sleeper Alters   You have probably heard of sleeper spies or terrorist cells that remain inactive for years until they are needed. Some people have certain alters like this. They remain inactive – sometimes for many years – until a crisis alerts them that they are needed and then they come to the fore. They can use various means to alert them of a crisis. It might, for example, be whenever a person engages in more self-harm than usual. Another way is to be particularly close to a certain alter and be activated when that alter is particularly distressed.   Some of these alters are helper alters that support alters when things become unbearable for one of them. (By coming to the rescue they might sometimes prevent the formation of a new alter.) Other sleeper alters are protectors who are quite strong and can take the person over almost completely during a supposed crisis.   Being sleeper alters means that they are likely to have been somewhat out of the loop while the rest of the person has been healing and so they might be less in possession of all the relevant facts than some other alters. Even more confusing is that in order to exercise the authority they feel the emergency demands, they might pretend to be another well-liked or powerful alter. The result can be very confusing for the rest of the person.   So if a person suddenly starts acting out of character, a sleeper alter might be the reason.   The difficulties in helping sleeper alters are obvious when you consider that since the very nature of a sleeper alter is to remain hidden until an emergency, they appear only rarely. Moreover they see their key function as supporting/protecting the person  by  remaining hidden and unconnected most of the time, so even if discovered, they feel the need to return to hiding.   Obviously, it is very important to try to convince a sleeper alter that it is now safe to remain out of hiding indefinitely. Such alters usually find not returning to hiding very scary, however, and can feel that by remaining out they are being unfaithful to their role and letting the whole person down. The easiest way I have found to break this is for the alter to fall in love with his/her marriage partner. They crave love and understanding so much that when they find it, they will be very reluctant to lose it again by going back to “sleep.” Another possibility is for other alters to give the new alter lots of love, understanding and comfort. Of course, the ultimate counselor remains Jesus. Encourage alters to let Jesus share his heart with them. He will reassure them.   Abusive Alters   Often when one takes the time to get to know an alter who is being harsh to fellow alters or hurting them or even sexually abusing them, it turns out that they actually believe they are helping. They might think, for example, that they are toughening up the alters, thus making them less vulnerable to abuse. Or, in the hope of saving the person from even worse abuse, they might enforce an abuser’s oppressive rules about never crying, or punishing them for doing anything the abuser might object to. Often the abusive alter is unaware that the abuser no longer has access to them and so the alter continues the oppression when there is no longer the slightest need.   As always, it is important to try to understand what motivates an alter and to gently help the alter see through any misconceptions the alter has.   Introjects   An introject is a rather amazing type of abuser alter. Until the misconception is exposed, an introject not only acts  like  an external person the survivor knew, but every alter within the survivor – including the introject alter – actually believes that this alter is not an alter but is the real external person. At first, this seems astounding but it is consistent with the wide range of different things that alters can think themselves, including animals, aliens and so on.   Often that external person is someone who abused the person who has this alter. Even though not all external abusers realize it, this type of introject alter enforces the external abuser’s wishes upon the alters when the abuser is absent. In fact, it can continue even after the abuser had died. Some introjects actually report back to the abuser as informers.   Not surprisingly, introjects have themselves suffered immensely.   It is important to bring introject alters to the point where they finally realize they are part of the abuse survivor and not part of the external abuser. Helping them discover the current date and that they are in the body of someone other than the abuser can help. Once introjects become loyal to the survivor, the person’s safety is significantly enhanced. I suggest you do not get side-tracked now but elsewhere on this website I have a detailed record of counselling an introject. The Healing Benefits of Alters Acting Less Mature The Healing Benefits of Alters Acting Less Mature Not only is the following a powerful way to heal from past trauma, it fascinates me because it is actually using Dissociative Identity Disorder to promote healing. Alters who are now more mature than when they were first formed have the ability to temporarily relinquish current responsibilities and revert to being a younger age, with the associated limitations. This can allow them to enjoy the carefree fun of child’s play or to receive from fellow alters and/or Jesus the attention, comfort and kindness they had been cruelly robbed of when younger. Basking in this for a while can heal them of inner pain and other afflictions resulting from their earlier mistreatment. Fellow alters healing and becoming more capable can make it possible for a key alter to take such a break without it adversely impacting the rest of the person. For example, an alter I’ll call Ruby had been around for almost as long as her outside body. Throughout this time she had sacrificially served the other alters and borne immense responsibility. Perhaps her very busyness had contributed to her not having time to heal. Ruby was addicted to overeating. Eventually she revealed that she was terrified of an empty stomach. Even having a full stomach while restricting herself to healthy food made her exceedingly anxious. Despite realizing the serious health implications, she longed to keep burying the problem. Both Violet (the host) and Jesus, however, kept coaxing her to face this issue. When she had been a baby she had not only suffered deeply distressing times of severe food deprivation but it was made even worse by these being the very times when sexual abuse occurred. After each abuse incident she would finally be allowed to gorge herself on breast milk and be temporarily freed both from hunger pains and the danger of more sex abuse. This cycle kept repeating. After explaining this, Ruby wrote to me: Do you see why hunger is terrifying for me? I feel safe and calm only when my stomach is uncomfortably full. When growing up it was always either feast or famine. During feast times we ate well but were forced to eat, no matter what it was, even if we threw up from it and our mouth were on fire. Screaming and beatings accompanied dinner. I hate eating what others force me to eat. I hate human regulation of my intake. I hate food. Hate it. Violet has suggested that I be a baby for a while. She says I need to experience what normal babies enjoy and let it override my past. Jesus has offered to be my mommy. He says he will use Violet to meet all the unmet needs I had back when I was a baby. It is very scary for me to go back to babyhood. Very scary. I don’t know if I can do it. She explained the practical details of how other alters were willing and able to each take some of the responsibilities she normally bore and that they were refusing to let her do that work. She continued: Violet, or should I say Mommy, says babies aren’t in charge of anything. Not even themselves. They have to rely on their Mommy and Daddy. What if I’m a bad baby? I queried her about that last question and discovered she worried about being needy. That, to her, made her ‘bad’ and worthy of punishment. I assured her that there is no such thing as a bad baby; only bad parents. After a day of reverting to babyhood, she wrote: Mommy nearly ran through the store to get me my milk. She has never left me alone, not for a second, all day today. Any time I ask for milk, Mommy gives it to me. She plays with me and sometimes almost cried because she loves me so much. I love my Mommy. She takes good care of me. But it’s confusing too. Why didn’t my biological mom do this for me? I just hurt. I’m going to get some mommy milk now. Later she wrote: As a baby I am so helpless and dependent on my Mommy and even on her very body. Now that I am experiencing what it really means to have a mommy I find that I’ve always had this ache. I find much comfort in my Mommy’s breast. She willingly gives it whenever I ask. I crave warm milk sliding into my tummy and she gives it to me regularly. My next bottle will be soon. I can feel it in my body. So my need will be totally met. That’s a new feeling. Then there are times when Jesus must feed me and comfort me. He is right there, filling my tummy with food, whenever Mommy cannot. But more than anything I crave Jesus. Deep parts of me that I didn’t know even existed have sprung to life and are being healed at his touch. My Daddy [Jesus] is incredible. And my Mommy is superb. Oh, how I love her! I am a loveable baby! She never takes her eyes off of me. She never does. And Jesus is behind her all the time. Later, Violet told me that Ruby had cried for her attention for the first time. She explained that until then Ruby had just let Violet’s body know her needs by a strong inner yearning but this time she had cried just because she wanted to be near Violet. I was thrilled by this development because it meant Ruby was gaining in confidence that it was okay to be what she considered to be a ‘needy’ baby. All of this was so obviously healing that I expected Ruby to announce at any moment that she had returned to adulthood, fully healed. God knew better, however. In a day or so she wrote: Jesus has said it’s time for me to move on to solid foods. So Mommy is going to wean me. I’m a bit scared of this but Daddy says I can take my time in the transition. That made me more comfortable. So her return journey took a few more days. Making it Seem More Real To lessen the reading of those who see no need for any of their alters to revert to a younger age, I almost relegated this section to the above link. It deserves a wider audience, however. It will have to be adapted to fit different situations, but learning how Violet made things particularly real and meaningful for Ruby could stimulate ideas for hosts as to how to deepen a whole range of experiences in relating to their alters. In the outside world, Violet used a teddy bear that to both her and Ruby represented baby Ruby. Violet took the stuffed toy everywhere in the outside world, except to certain places, such as work, where it would raise eyebrows. Whenever she looked at the teddy she would visualize it as being Ruby’s tiny body and used an old sweater to swaddle Ruby/the teddy. They both visualized anything Violet did with the teddy in the outside world as happening to Ruby in the internal world shared by all of Violet’s parts. Violet added: Sometimes Ruby’s anxiety washes over her and she needs some bonding and reassurance. Babies typically get this most strongly when breastfeeding. So when Ruby needs this I place the teddy on my breast. That usually does the trick but it can only go so far. Since I don’t produce milk, my breast is only able to bring comfort and connection – not the sensation of a filled stomach. I use milk in a bottle for that feeling. At those times, Ruby takes over the body and has a bottle. This produces the physical feeling she needs to find comfort from a full stomach. At first, Ruby just laid there watching but that didn’t matter to me. I just took care of her because she is precious to me. She never made a sound or acted like she was in need. Some of this is because she was transitioning from an adult to a baby. That would be a very awkward transition. But even without all that, she is a traumatized baby. Such babies usually don’t make much sound or move a lot. They are quiet even when they need something. So, whether she responded or not, I played with her and baby-talked with her. I know she eventually will start acting like the wonderful baby she is. It’s just going to take some time and trust. At first I had to remind her to stop talking to me. Babies don’t talk. That was hard for her, especially when she was getting hungry. She had to trust that I knew what I was doing and it was going to be okay if I had control over her body and her food. She would be fed and taken care of regularly. It’s a true trust-growing experience for her and an extreme honor for me to take care of someone so precious to me and her Daddy. The upshot of all this is that my connection with Ruby is extraordinarily strong. She is my life and breath. I can’t imagine my life without her in it. I think this is the best choice we’ve ever made. The healing and connection that is going to come out of this will be outstanding. Not surprisingly, this brought Ruby deep healing in a matter of days. She was then ready to return to her former duties with far more peace and fulfillment than she had ever before known. Unique Challenges in Helping Alters   *  Just because an alter was formed at a certain age does not mean that the alter has all the skills normally associated with that age. For example, it is quite possible for an alter of an excellent reader to be formed in her twenties and yet be unable to read.   *  Even though you could be focusing exclusively on one alter or the host, you must always remain alert to the possibility that other alters could be overhearing or observing.   *  Usually a significant factor in the formation of alters is that the host had no one who would sympathize with him/her. Any feeling of isolation and rejection at their very formation is often magnified still further by the way alters are subsequently treated even by their own host, who usually has had no training in understanding alters. All of this would be enough to make almost anyone feel suicidal and to feel he/she is “nothing.” But on top of this, alters can mistakenly suppose that being an alter means they are less than human and almost literally “nothing.”   Even if they don’t think they are toys, animals, aliens or demons, it is common for alters to doubt that they are fully human. Many factors contribute to this. For example, our emotions are a significant part of our humanity, and alters are commonly in so much pain that they are largely dissociated from their feelings and emotions. They can feel more like zombies than normal people. Moreover, alters are often formed as a result of being treated callously, as though they were less than human. In addition, to admit to oneself that one is human is to raise one’s hopes of being treated with dignity and respect and perhaps even love. Most alters’ experience affirms that this is unlikely and that it is less painful never to get one’s hopes up by letting oneself think one is human.   I discovered another significant factor in alters feeling less than human when I wrote on friendship greeting cards and posted them to some of Alice’s alters. When I had only been aware of a few of Alice’s alters I was better able to give them individual attention, but it grew harder when many more appeared in fairly rapid succession. One day, the alter I had known for the longest time suggested that I give a greeting card to one of two troubled alters. She said that giving them something tangible would be beneficial. I decided to buy many cards that were each different, address each one to a different alter, and write a unique, personal message on each card, affirming my appreciation of that alter. Their excitement over receiving their own greeting card far exceeded my expectations.   I had often spoken individually to each alter, so I was surprised that the cards would have such a powerful effect on them. Then I realized that most of these alters had not only never in their lives personally received the smallest of gifts, most had not even one item that they could call their own. I ask hosts to think hard about how they might correct this.   Until I came along, these alters had been in such isolation that they rarely interacted with people and often had not even had a name, much less had been addressed by name. Being continually and solely treated like this would be highly dehumanizing for anyone. Giving each of them a little gift was another significant step in affirming to them that they are truly real and not, as some people think, a figment of the imagination.   Time and again, I have found that a significant aspect of healing involves alters having their humanity affirmed. It is obviously psychologically unhealthy – depressing at the very least – for a person to feel less than human. Likewise, it is unhealthy for people to have any  part  of them that feels not human or less than human. For a person to be in his or her prime, each part of the full person needs to be psychologically and spiritually in top condition.   It is tempting to fear that affirming each alter’s existence and individuality would perpetuate a person’s fracturedness. Consider, however, how restoring each individual part of a machine to full strength and pristine condition would cause the entire machine to function so much better. In fact, fully restored parts fit together better than rusted parts. Likewise, if an alter is empowered to be strong, confident and enjoy life, the entire person will benefit. Moreover, confident, assertive alters feel more empowered to share their secrets, thus breaking down the walls that keep a person fractured.   Over and over, as I have affirmed alters, building up their self-confidence and relationship with God, I have seen them develop all sorts of unexpected abilities that have immensely benefited the entire person. D.I.D. exists because of burying things and avoiding issues. The last thing you want is to further bury things. You want to heal, not perpetuate the pain and disfunction.   So I firmly believe that it is important for alters to realize that they are very lovable, deeply loved by God and are fully human. Let’s briefly examine the issue of their humanity.   Even though there is more to your life than just a portion of your life experiences and memories, you were fully human throughout every experience and memory you had. Suppose a hit on your head caused you to forget most of your past and you could otherwise function fairly normally. Would that make you cease to be human? Likewise, although alters have a portion, and not all, of a person’s life experiences, memories, feelings, reactions and thoughts, they are fully human. Just as we are real humans despite the fact that none of us can consciously recall every experience and thought that we have ever had, so alters are really human, even though an alter is not aware of everything that happened to the person.   Someone with alters who was trying to live in denial told me, “It’s not like alters are real flesh and blood . . .”   I replied, “Alters do have flesh and blood. The body you call your own is as much theirs as yours.”   A man told me about an alter of his that had just recently surfaced. “He is kind of a goofball,” he said. “He does not know his name or age.” My heart sank. Hopefully, as reader of these webpages, you have been so alerted to the sensitivities of alters that you would never use such an insulting name when speaking about alters, especially when they might overhear. In actual fact, if alters first reveal themselves after some alters have already been helped, it is common for them to have overheard conversations and to have grasped from this that they are not the age that they had previously thought they were. Coming to terms with this is confusing for an alter but the dawning of an awareness of an age discrepancy is a sign of intelligence, not stupidity.   Let’s continue listing unique challenges in helping alters:   *  We have seen that whenever an alter faces a new trauma, another split is likely to occur. If the previous alter then goes into deep hiding, it is akin to death for the alter, in that often the alter ceases to develop or have much in the way of new experiences and it is left behind in a time warp. But the rest of the person continues to progress. For at least one alter I’ve met, this perceived similarity between going into long term hiding and physical death made it hard for her to grasp emotionally (even though she knew it intellectually) that to kill herself by actually committing suicide is more serious than her “killing” herself simply by going into hiding. It only barely registered in her consciousness that killing her body would kill the host and all the alters. She at least realized that she shared the one body with her host and all the alters. When alters are just beginning to understand who they are, they usually have no conception at all that their bodies are also their hosts’ bodies. There are obvious dangers in regarding suicide as less serious than it really is. If you come across a suicidal alter, in addition to the usual support, ensure that the alter knows that his/her death would kill not just the alter but the host and other alters.   *  The fact that alters were created because of the need to deal with severe inner pain can leave some alters scared to let go of pain (to experience full inner healing). They fear that without the pain they would either cease to exist or their reason for living would cease. Obviously, this misconception would need to be addressed in order for alters not to sabotage their own healing.   *  A woman was in love and wanted to marry. Her little five-year-old alter also loved the man and wanted the marriage. I was concerned. It is obviously inappropriate for a child to be exposed to marital relations, and even more so for a little alter who had been formed precisely because of the horror of sexual abuse.   The little alter affirmed to me that she knew that married people liked doing things to each other that she didn’t want. I asked her how she would handle that situation.   “I’d just go off and play with God,” she said.“ But how would you know when it is safe to return?” “I’d just ask God,” she replied, full of confidence. “But you deserve lots of hugs, too,” I said. “I get lots of hugs from God,” she replied.   It was quite a while before they married and by then things had radically changed. For his own personal reasons, not related to her at all, her fiancé announced that he wanted to take things very slowly after the wedding and delay consummating the marriage for weeks. By the time the wedding was approaching, however, their fiancé’s plan was too slow for them. The alters had so healed that even those aged three were begging God that as soon as it were morally acceptable they be allowed to go further sexually than their fiancé intended so quickly after marriage. A significant factor in this change was all the alters growing very close to each other, enabling the younger ones to learn from the much older ones about the positive aspects of sex. The other important factor is that they felt totally free from pressure. They knew they could withhold sex and still enjoy this man’s unconditional love. His selfless love filled them with a desire to pour out their love upon him.   Moreover, after a few months an alter surfaced for the first time while the couple were making love. This was not because the alter was triggered but because she found it so pleasurable. It affirmed to the alter that life was worth living. Not long afterwards another alter surfaced during lovemaking. This one had thought she was dead but the pleasure she had felt during lovemaking affirmed to her that she was alive. Later, still more new alters were, as it were, pleasantly awakened from sleep through lovemaking. These alters quickly discovered they were now much older and married. They healed rapidly because by now the host had many alters who knew the ropes and were able to quickly teach the new ones such things as how to access the memories of other alters. It was a joy to see how painless this whole process was for them, in huge contrast to the slow, agonizing progress that healing had been for the first alters to surface.   Another woman writes:   Once, before I knew about D.I.D. but after God had begun talking to me about inner child parts, I was moving towards an intimate encounter with my husband and started to panic inside. Realizing this might be a reaction from child parts, I felt led to say, “It’s okay. I’m an adult. I’m married, and it’s okay for this to happen. I don’t mind.” They seemed confused and shocked, questioning, “Really? Are you sure it’s okay?”   “Yes, it really is,” I replied. “So you can just go play now or something.”   “Well, if your really sure . . .” came the response.   Then another part – a young girl – gently ushered them away.   Alters require time to develop the level of confidence in God and in her future husband that this alter displayed, but it certainly opened my eyes as to what is possible. The only problem I could foresee is that her host’s husband would need to avoid being overly spontaneous by giving the alter no warning before doing something that would be inappropriate in a presence of a little girl. I presume the same principle could apply if an adult wanted to see or read something that could disturb a tiny alter.   Wherever practical, however, the ideal is to wait until all alters who believe they are children mature. This should in no way be enforced upon them but it might take as little as just a few months if they get lots of support in their healing.   *  If alters no longer feel it is safe to reveal themselves to you, they will go quiet. If they suspect you will reject, despise or criticize them, you will not hear from them. They will likewise clam up if they suspect you will expose them or betray them by telling their secrets to someone they do not, as yet, trust. If you do not realize this, and you have alters, you will wrongly conclude from their silence that you do not have alters or that they have now gone or integrated with you.   *  To someone unsure as to how to talk to her own alters, Alice wrote:   I asked my alters (who are now very chatty) what helped them open up. They said they loved being read to. (Reading out loud has loads of benefits anyway and helps me greatly with public speaking). In a story, they would feel what the characters were feeling. I used books with non-threatening stories. If one of the story characters was sad and an alter could relate, I’d stop reading and let her/me cry. It was a safe way for alters to express feelings, without directly connecting with their own pain.   I suggest a children’s book or a book about children. Young alters can relate to children. Animal stories were also a big way for my alters to express themselves. I cried through the book,  Holes . It really touched their fears of injustice. The movie  Second Hand Lions  was brilliant for them. They laughed, cried and didn’t feel alone.   At the end of this webseries is a link to a couple of short Christian stories written especially for young alters.   *  Although it is common to suppose that all alters have been identified when there are still some in hiding, it is also possible to suppose there are more alters than there really are. “I’m hiding another alter,” lied a female alter. She did this because if she were rejected because of what she then revealed, only this non-existent alter would be rejected. She could continue to converse with me on other subjects.   *  Yet another challenge unique to alters is that timid alters typically sleep during the day (when they find things the most stressful) and come out late at night when everyone else (host included) is asleep. It would therefore be productive for counsellors to regularly phone late at night but this is obviously very draining for the counsellor and largely impractical.   Continued

Serious, Do-It-Yourself Healing Of inner pain, anger or distress from trauma, bereavement, divorce, breakup, abuse, tragedy, etc   Compassionate Help   Whether the emotional pain be from bereavement, relationship breakup, post traumatic stress disorder, family disputes, financial disaster, or whatever, the deepest part of a person can seem incurably wounded. You, however, can be among the countless thousands who have discovered the secret to healing. If you have suffered rape or sexual interference there is a version of this page just for you: Do-It-Yourself Healing from Sexual Abuse     Few of those who are heroes in my eyes see themselves in that light. Instead, they are pounded by low self-esteem and condemn themselves mercilessly. If you have endured distress or torment for quite some time, you are most likely worthy not only of deep compassion, but deep admiration. This webpage is not about empathizing with those who are heroically battling inner pain or depression, however. I have other pages where that is the focus. This page grapples with the tough issues on which healing hinges.   Sadly, time does not heal. Time affords us opportunities to find healing, but the mere passing of time accomplishes nothing. Our bodies will heal a minor flesh wound without our conscious intervention, and so in that case it might seem that time heals. Even with the physical, however, a more serious wound will require conscious treatment to avoid dangerous complications. With inner wounds, the pain and distress will still be with you when you are a grandparent, unless you find full healing. There is no need for alarm, however. Healing is available.   Part of what makes us human is having an acute sense of right and wrong and a compelling need to apportion blame. The range of things that can trigger the blame treadmill is enormous. Examples include relationship breakup, job loss, domestic violence, financial reversal, bereavement, trauma, serious illness, birth defects, disability, natural disaster, ridicule, unpopularity, family disputes, crime, tragedy, and on and on we could go.   It turns out that the extent of your healing teeters upon where you put the blame. The usual choices end up tormenting us year after year but there is one that brings the relief we desperately need. Chances are that certain parts of the following will seem of little relevance and yet warrant more of your attention than you expect. Deep down, matters we have rarely concerned ourselves with, or seem fully resolved, are likely to at least occasionally gnaw away at us. Even after significant progress we can often find still deeper levels of peace and healing we wish we had discovered earlier. Let’s explore the common and not so common choices in a passionate search for the option that liberates us into healing and wholeness.     What Can We Do With The Blame?   1.   We could choose to heap the blame and shame upon ourselves   Note:  Most of this section is repeated in part of another of my webpages. So if you have already read  Cure for Self-Hate  feel free to skip to  the next part , but please  read the rest of this page because it has many important insights.     What torment this option brings! So many precious lives have been ruined or tragically shortened by unfounded or hideously distorted feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Young men and women of high morals can become so brainwashed into wrongly thinking themselves to be ‘trash’ that they end up needlessly cheapening themselves.   Even if you truly have acted despicably and are highly blameworthy, however, you will still need to get past this and move on. Tormenting yourself helps no one. We will briefly address those who needlessly blame themselves but further on in this webpage you will discover that even if you were as blameworthy as your worst nightmares, your hope would still be boundless. If you really are guilty of appalling atrocities, recovering from your past offenses in a morally and psychologically effective way is as important and as possible for you, as it is for the most innocent of people.   Let’s for the moment, however, look at some common reasons for people being mistakenly convinced that something is their fault.         *   Hindsight is Unrealistic   An obvious factor in self-blame is that hindsight empowers us to see with far greater clarity than was possible at the time. What is obvious afterwards, is seldom so obvious before events unfold. What at the time seemed a remote possibility looks certain after it happens. It is common when grieving the loss of a loved one, for example, to blame ourselves for things that were at the time largely beyond our control and/or ability to predict.   In real life, a person is often caught off guard and when things escalate he or she is paralyzed by shock.   If you had suffered previous traumas that had certain similarities to a later predicament, instead of those experiences making you wiser, they could actually deaden your ability to avoid the situation, due to the crippling psychological force known as learned helplessness. The tauma of having once been subjected to a situation in which resistance was useless or achieved nothing (a child being overpowered or outwitted by an adult, for example) programs us to expect that in a similar situation, resistance will again be useless. This is explained far more convincingly in a link at the end of this page, but we need to move on.        *  The Dangers of Low Self-Esteem   Another factor triggering self-blame is that it is common for people who are hurting to have been relentlessly brainwashed in their most impressionable years that they are “hopeless” or “bad” or “can’t do a thing right” or are “not as capable as their brother or sister.” These lies eventually come to be accepted as truth by the victims of these putdowns. Tragically, these lies often begin in people’s most impressionable years, breaking their self-esteem to the point where they settle for abusive partners, who further erode their self-esteem.   Once our self-image hardens, we filter all new information to conform to our self-image. So when people say positive things about us, we disbelieve them or it hardly registers with us that the words were ever spoken, whereas we latch on to every negative comment as confirmation of our mistaken beliefs about ourselves.   It is not uncommon to unconsciously surround ourselves with people who reinforce our poor self-image and to feel uncomfortable around more positive and/or well-respected or esteemed people. It is astounding, for example, how many daughters of alcoholics end up marrying alcoholics, despite promising themselves they would never do so. Even though we can only reform ourselves, never someone else, often these people marry alcoholics because they feel a strong compulsion to prove they can reform an alcoholic, since they see their father’s continued alcoholism as proof that they had failed. Of course, by entering such a marriage, they are setting themselves up for more pain and more experiences that they will mistakenly interpret as confirmation that they are “failures.”   Perhaps because he was not the first father she had known, a friend of mine regarded her step-father’s alcoholism as her mother’s responsibility and so felt no pressure to marry an alcoholic. However, her father’s actions caused her to feel unloved. This led her to marry the first man who would have her, since she presumed that no one else ever would. Her thirty-eight years of marriage were unhappy, largely because she had chosen to marry someone who was not good at communicating his love and she kept interpreting his every word and action to line up with her conviction that she was unlovable.   I know someone whose mother has the psychological disorder of narcissism and is impossible to please. It seems more than coincidence that, until my friend grew in self-esteem, she kept ending up in jobs in which the boss was a female who was as impossible to please as her mother. In one job, her boss made enemies of everyone. In another, the boss surrounded herself with women whose spirit was broken because they came from abuse backgrounds and kept putting them down. My friend was only vaguely aware that her motivation in her job choices was to prove herself capable of winning the approval of someone like her mother, since she had failed to do this as a child. She picked jobs with bosses so much like her mother, however, that no one could ever win their approval. So my friend kept being put down, with the result that all her life experiences seemed to confirm her false self-image.   The ways we can perpetuate a false self-image are almost endless, and men are just as susceptible as women. For example, I always assumed I was too undesirable for any woman to ever date me and I was never proved wrong because I was so sure that every woman would reject me that I never dared ask anyone for a date.   For someone with low self-esteem, blaming oneself can feel so right that the person might not even bother to rationally examine the matter.   Rebuilding one’s self-image can be as challenging as rebuilding a bombed house, and to break the habit of continually thinking negatively about ourselves can be as difficult as it is for a heavy smoker to quit smoking. At the end of this page is a valuable link about how to complete the challenging task, but it is best to leave it until completing this page.        *   An Attempt to Feel in Control   If the real offender were not you but someone emotionally important to you or someone you are dependent upon – a lover or family member, for example – the thought of concluding that that person is wrong or depraved can be so devastating that you find it easier to blame yourself than blame the offender. Wives who are economically and/or emotionally dependent upon an abusive husband, might rather believe it is their fault than try to cope with feeling trapped. To give another example, children desperately need the security of knowing that their parents are good, trustworthy people who will protect, comfort and nurture them. This need can be so intense that they will choose to believe they were at fault rather than face the terrifying reality that they are exposed to continual danger that is utterly beyond their control.        *   The High Status of the Offender   If an offender is someone highly respected, such as a community leader, the pressure can be immense to doubt one’s own judgment, rather than doubt the abuser’s integrity. If the person is esteemed as a spiritual authority, it might seem so unthinkable that he could be wrong that his opinions are regarded as being more trustworthy than one’s own conscience or biblical interpretation. Spiritual abuse then becomes a distinct possibility.        *   If Your Distress Originated During Childhood . . .   If you were a child when the offense occurred, additional forces come into play, although they still influence us even as adults. Children are programmed (and perhaps even have an inbuilt tendency) to respect and believe adults or much older children. Often their very survival – as well as their rapid development – hinges on it. In what only adults can recognize as a life-or-death situation, it is essential for children to obey immediately. Little children can learn and mature at the required rate only by unquestioning acceptance of what adults teach them. So when adults (or older children) do wrong, children not only lack the maturity and intellectual ability to see through the lie, they have a strong, natural urge to trust and obey.   Adults can cruelly manipulate the emotions of their victims until tender consciences are shattered by an overwhelming burden of false guilt. If an adult insists upon secrecy, it not only inflames the conviction that something shamefully wrong is occurring, it forces victims to keep their emotions dangerously bottled up.          *   Scrupulosity   No one’s conscience is perfect. Even St Paul saw his conscience as fallible (1 Corinthians 4:4). Certain medical or mental conditions and/or spiritual attacks, however, render a person’s conscience exceptionally unreliable, causing them to feel excessively condemned over minor lapses, or things they have no control over. Anxiety disorders, such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, are a common example of conditions that can play havoc with a person’s conscience without the person having the slightest idea of the link.   Regardless of how justified our guilt feelings are, however, once self-blame starts, we soon find ourselves imprisoned by a guilt-ridden cycle of self-loathing that simply gets harder and harder to break free from, as the years grind on. The most saintly person on the planet has regrets, but once we view ourselves as unforgivable, motivation to keep doing the right thing usually vanishes in a swamp of hopelessness.   It is only natural to act out our self-image, no matter how contrary to reality that self-image is. Many of us are tempted to magnify our own guilt and underrate the guilt of ‘respectable’ people. The reality, however, is that – except for Jesus – the best of earth’s inhabitants has at some time or another done inexcusable things. Trying to pretend we have never done the inexcusable is like trying to ignore cancer. We can’t simply ignore reasons for blaming ourselves for at least some avoidable things we have done. We must somehow find a highly legitimate way to forgive ourselves. Keep reading, and you will find the answers you need.   We have listed powerful psychological forces that pressure us to  falsely  blame ourselves. To delve into them any further, however, would probably be counterproductive. It would most likely only cause us to shift the blame. Despite initially seeming like welcome relief, shifting the blame ends up like moving a red hot iron from burning our back to burning our stomach. What we most need – and this webpage is providing it – is an overview to see where the blame game leads.   2.   We could blame other people   The person whose action actually hurt us is the obvious target, but other possibilities are people whom we feel should have provided more protection.   Blaming people other than oneself is attractive, not only because others might undeniably deserve severe punishment, but also because blaming them sometimes seems the only way to help relieve the crushing weight of guilt (whether justified or not) upon ourselves. The problem, however, is that blaming others causes resentment and bitterness to keep infecting a hurting person’s inner wound, thus preventing healing.   It’s as though someone broke your hand. This makes you so mad that every day as you pass that person’s photo hanging on the wall, you punch it with your broken hand. The release of pent up anger might feel good, but the constant punching prolongs your agony by preventing your hand from ever healing. It turns out that a desire to see someone else suffer ends up perpetuating our own suffering.   The devastating thing is that resentment is addictive. Like a junkie, we focus so much on the temporary relief that resentment offers that we hardly realize that it inflames the downer that follows, and so the agonizing cycle continues.   To decide to make the ending of your torment dependent upon how much the offender ends up regretting what he/she did, is to decide to perpetuate your torture. It needlessly reduces your life to an on-going tragedy by permanently gluing your destiny to the person who hurt you. To make your peace and happiness dependent upon what your enemy does or what happens to him/her is to empower the person (even if he/she is now dead). It is to surrender control of your life and needlessly make yourself a victim again.   Isn’t it time to stop being your enemy’s plaything? Wouldn’t it be good to stop giving him/her control over your emotions and well-being? Don’t you long to take back that control and truly live again?   And here is another dilemma: what if what drove the offender to act so despicably is that he/she suffered enormously at the hands of someone else? For example, sex offenders often end up that way because they themselves were victims of child sex abuse. You might consider it inexcusable that anyone would end up causing someone to suffer, no matter how messed up they were by what was done to them and no matter how much they are reeling in never-ending inner pain and confusion. Nevertheless, is it right for you to consider yourself morally superior to such a person if you, too, have wanted another person to suffer as a result of what you have suffered? (In your case, the person you have wanted to suffer might be the offender, but it is still wanting someone to suffer because of what you have suffered.) Maybe you are too filled with rage to see that at present.   Despite our fanciful notions, it is unlikely that we could ever see anyone suffer so profoundly as to satisfy our lust for revenge. Moreover, as people keep discovering to their dismay, it is our pain that drives the desire for revenge and, except for Jesus, no one else’s pain can lessen our own pain. So the tragedy is that if we get stuck on the revenge path, in fifty years’ time we will still be no closer to a resolution.   I often hike in wilderness areas infested with snakes so venomous that without specialized medical treatment I might have only a couple of hours to live after being bitten. Suppose a snake bit me, then slid out of sight. I would be a fool to squander precious time angrily trying to find the snake and execute my vengeance on it. First priority must be to get medical attention.   It is critical for your own survival to focus on healing, not revenge.   Nevertheless, the offender’s actions could still be inexcusable. We are rightly infuriated at the thought of forgiving an offender, if it means what most of us think it means. Forgiveness carries no hint that the offense does not matter or it is minor, or that the victim is to blame. On the contrary, to forgive is to acknowledge that the offender is at fault. If it were not the offender’s fault, or he/she could not help it, or the offense were somehow excusable, there could be no forgiveness because there would be nothing to forgive.   For as long as we are dominated by the longing to see someone suffer, that person has succeeded in dragging us down to his despicable level. He hurt us. Now we want him to hurt. We degrade ourselves by entering the slimy world of hate. We needlessly stagger through life as a defeated person, floundering in the same moral mud in which our tormentor lives.   Regardless of how it manifests, resentment enslaves and corrupts its victims. Pathetically, people blinded by anger or hate usually feel morally superior to other people who are likewise blinded by anger or hate. Bitter people are beautiful people turned ugly. Thankfully the process is reversible, once we discover the liberating power of letting go of resentment.   We move from victim to victor only when we break free from resentment’s death-grip.   What the offender did could be blameworthy and deserving of the severest punishment. What you suffered must be avenged, and yet the irony is that if you seek revenge, you are keeping yourself from healing. This dilemma must be resolved, but how?   3.   We could blame God   Again, this option brings a degree of comfort, because it draws our attention away from ourselves, but it keeps the wound open and festering.   Just as by a cruel trick of the mind, innocent victims of domestic violence can  feel  justified in blaming themselves, we can feel justified in blaming God. Such feelings can be strong and yet are as tragically out of touch with reality as a dangerously skinny victim of anorexia nervosa feeling convinced that she is fat.   Here’s a tiny story to highlight in a few words the tragedy that keeps so many of us from discovering the key to healing.   A kind, soft-hearted doctor is particularly fond of a little patient of hers. All that the little child can focus on, however, is the vaccinations the doctor gave her and the painful stitches in her cuts. To her childish mind, that caring, tender-hearted doctor is not a healer but a torturer. One day the child is strolling along the sidewalk when suddenly she sees the doctor approaching. In her panic she flees across the road and is hit by a car, breaking her leg. Of course, the first on the scene is that dreaded doctor.   In time, her physical pain is overshadowed by the shame of walking with a severe limp. It scars her whole life, making her unpopular at school, later interfering with her marriage prospects, her career opportunities, her self image, and countless other aspects of her life.   All of this inflames her hatred of doctors. She spends her life avoiding them and so never discovers that simple surgery would have totally cured her limp.   Like that little child, a misunderstanding causes far too many of us to waste our lives resenting and avoiding God. What makes resentment against God so tragic is that if there truly is a caring, supernatural God, then he, like no therapist in the world, would understand and feel your pain and be able to bring you healing.   The God you thought you hated isn’t real. The real God, as contrasted with the monster your imagination might have created, is tender, compassionate, and understanding. This is not an easy concept to grasp, living as we do in a world that is violently opposed to his ways of love and justice.   Blaming God keeps you from the one Person who fully understands your anguish, who offers perfect comfort, and is able to bring supernatural healing. Resenting God is ultimately as self-destructive as suicide, and as counterproductive as a drowning person fighting off his rescuer.   Hating yourself is a dead end. Hating another person keeps you in pain. And hating God is just another variation on hating another person. In fact, resenting people can be as spiritually suicidal as resenting God. Both forms of resentment build a wall between you and your Healer.   Monkeys are easily trapped by placing food behind a small opening. When they slip their hand in and grab the food, their hand becomes a fist that is bigger than the opening. Refusing to let go, they remain firmly caught until seized by hunters.   For as long as we make a fist at someone (even at ourselves, or at God) we, too, are trapped. While we hold on to our bitterness, we are unable to leave our painful past behind and get on with life. There is just one other option. It’s now time to explore it.   4.   We could find the  ULTIMATE  scapegoat   For an adequate resolution, someone must take the blame, and yet our dilemma is that blaming keeps us bitter. It keeps us locked into the past and reliving it over and over and over. Like spitting into the wind, the blame game keeps flying back at us; soiling us and increasing our discomfort and annoyance. What we have suffered is so horrific that whoever we choose to blame can never suffer enough to bring us peace. Blaming is like a fistfight that will never end until we decide to stop the fight, and for as long as we keep fighting, we’ll keep getting still more hurt and wounded.   But the blame has to land somewhere. Something awful has occurred. For justice to be done and your honor restored, someone should suffer big-time. But who could suffer enough to bring you peace?   Were we to indulge in wishful thinking, we might say we need a willing scapegoat – someone who could miraculously absorb all blame, and suffer so horrifically and adequately for the offense as to pay the full debt to justice finally and fully extinguish all blame, rendering you fully vindicated, and spotlessly pure.   Of course, this is ridiculous. Or is it?   The term scapegoat actually comes from the Bible. I think you’ll be surprised how much insight this ancient practice gives us into the ultimate resolution of the blame dilemma we face.   Under the Old Covenant, two goats were chosen to atone for sin. These animals were, of course, utterly innocent of any human sin, and yet the sins of the entire nation were symbolically placed on them. One of them was sacrificed, paying the ultimate price for the nation’s sins – sins that were essentially average and yet in the final analysis took no less than the death penalty for the blame to be completely eliminated. One goat – called the scapegoat – stayed alive and, after the death of the other one, was allowed to escape into the desert, symbolically taking the sins away from the people, never to be seen again.   But we need more than symbols. We need the real thing.   So far, this seems irrelevant, but please stay with me for a moment until you begin to see how it could point to the answer you have been seeking. First, some background: animal sacrifices, though hopelessly inadequate to resolve our guilt problems, were divinely instituted to point prophetically to the ultimate sacrifice. The sacrifice to end all sacrifices would have to be human, since it is humans who are blameworthy. But to end all blame, the perfect sacrificial victim would, like the goats, have to be utterly blameless. Unless he had absolute moral perfection – like no other human the world has ever seen – he would be suffering merely for his own imperfections, not for what has shattered us. This ultimate sacrifice is the One of whom John the Baptist said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’   That  two  goats were needed to atone for the nation’s sins – one dying and then the other released alive – points to the death and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus, both of which were needed to resolve utterly the guilt of humanity’s offenses. Just as Jesus rose to a new life, so he has the power to give us a new life, after fully extinguishing all blame and shame.   This remains bizarre and irrelevant to your pain  unless there actually is a supernatural God who loves you so intensely that humanity’s only true Innocent took upon himself all the blame, letting himself be tormented to death so that you could have his peace and purity and rise with him to a new life that begins here and now.   Studying ancient history at university proved to me the historical certainty of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. I went on to major in psychology and it was while studying that subject that I became convinced of the unique power of Jesus to do what psychology could never attain. So certain am I that this is the most powerful way of freeing people from serious afflictions, that instead of pursuing psychology after graduation, I determined to devote my life to helping people discover the supernatural power to heal and transform lives that only the eternal Son of God could achieve.   Jesus wants to take upon himself all the guilt, all the horror, and all the shame you have suffered or ever deserve. He wants every trace of filth to be dumped on him until it destroys him – which it did – because in destroying him, its power to touch you is also destroyed.   ‘But Jesus had nothing to do with what I suffered,’ you object, ‘He was innocent.’ Yes, Jesus was innocent. In fact, the intensity of his innocence and purity is like white that causes every other thing that we ever thought was white to show up as gray. Relative to him, the purest of virgins, or the kindest, most saintly person is sin-stained. And yet, Christ was stripped naked, publicly exposed, humiliated, savagely beaten and his body cruelly violated until finally he died. He did that for you and me.   At first thought it seems inconceivable that an innocent man allowing himself to be tortured to death could heal someone nearly two thousand years later. You deserve an explanation. There are three difficulties in trying to explain the most significant event in all human history, however.   First, explanations are lifeless. Sitting through a lecture about the psychology of being in love, for instance, is very different to being hit by a tidal wave of head-over-heels love. The realm of God consists not of talk, but power (1 Corinthians 4:20). We need a life-changing connection to the infinite power of Almighty God, not some quaint philosophy or feel-good story.   The second difficulty is that Jesus and what he has accomplished is so unique that there is nothing in our experience that can provide an adequate comparison.   Third, even a summary of an attempted explanation would be so long as to test your patience. I want to rush you to the benefits. I touch just a few highlights in  The key to supernatural healing.     The Benefits   In his cold, rational assessment of the atrocities he had committed earlier in his life, one of Christianity’s most revered holy people – the apostle Paul – concluded that he was the greatest of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Nevertheless, he discovered the secret of a squeaky clean conscience. This rendered him spiritually invincible, in that he was resistant to temptations to judge others harshly, because he saw himself as having been equally as worthy of hell as those who tortured him and tried to kill him. He never had to try to defend his past because he knew he was as bad as anyone could get, and yet he enjoyed the wonder of knowing his conscience was as pure as crystal. What Paul enjoyed is available to everyone who realizes he/she deserves hell and that Jesus died to personally absorb all blame for the offenses that have touched us and to give us Jesus’ innocence.   Jesus always takes the side of those who refuse to look down on others, but instead focus on their own need for forgiveness. Here’s just one example. Jesus said:   Luke 18:10-14  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”   Through Christ, anyone can be made spotlessly innocent in the eyes of humanity’s holy Judge, no matter how sordid, perverse or horrific his or her past has been. From the perspective of the perfection of God’s standards, a divinely forgiven mass murderer is infinitely more righteous than anyone who has not come to Christ for cleansing, even if that Christless person feels spotlessly clean and seems the most saintly person on the planet.   The uniqueness of Jesus and his suffering makes possible a spiritual exchange whereby he takes from you every speck of humiliation and failure and sin, and puts it on himself. In exchange you take upon yourself Christ’s moral perfection. He gets your sin and shame and God’s anger – that’s what killed him – and you get his holiness and honor and God’s smile of approval.   Reeling under the horror of something highly regrettable, it is natural to feel compelled to keep replaying the events over and over in one’s mind, endlessly interrogating oneself, trying to ascertain the extent of one’s guilt or innocence.  What if I hadn’t done that? Or what if I had done this?  Nagging doubts persist, and so the dreaded cycle grinds on and on.   The great relief that Christ brings is that he has so powerfully dealt with  real  guilt that even if people plagued with unbearable  false  guilt were actually a thousand times more evil than they imagine, Christ would still long to purify them and make them as if they had never sinned.   Irrespective of whether the guilt is real or just a nightmare, God longs for you to enjoy the exquisite peace of knowing that through spiritual union with Christ, you have the exquisitely flawless purity of God himself. One of the things that makes this purity so liberating is that we no longer have to agonize over humanly unanswerable questions, trying to determine the degree of our real or imagined guilt in past events. The matter can finally rest in peace. It was buried when Christ was buried. His death ended the matter. Whatever our share of the guilt really is (from zero to a hundred percent), Christ fully absorbed it within himself. It died when he died. Our innocence is restored the moment we trust Jesus to bring about the spiritual exchange of our imperfections for his holiness and our shame for the eternal honor that is his.   Every valid reason for questions about guilt churning through your mind was laid to rest when Jesus’ mutilated corpse was placed in the tomb. And you gain a brand new and holy life when by faith you identify with the crucified Lord who in holiness burst through the tomb to live forevermore.   The extent to which we feel the need to blame ourselves or someone else, indicates how much we are needlessly tormenting ourselves by holding on to the pain; refusing to let the supernatural God resolve the matter.   Our need to assign blame, also measures how much we have yet to fully absorb the fact that Jesus died for the sins of the entire world.   To truly believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world, is to believe he took the full blame – having paid the ultimate price of the death penalty – for every sin that has ever been committed. You will therefore believe there is no blame left over to assign to  anyone . By his horrific torture he bore full punishment for it all.   To limit our understanding of what Jesus’ suffering achieved is to strangle the source of our very life, both now and eternally. On the other hand, allowing the full implications to explode within us is the most liberating experience any human can have.   Suppose a woman let doctors treat some of her ailments but refused to let them examine the lump that will kill her if left untreated. That is like letting Jesus treat some of our problems, but insisting on dealing with the critical blame issue ourselves. In the final analysis, to stop blaming and let Jesus take all the blame is the only workable option.   Forgiving someone who has hurt us does not mean shifting blame from the other party to ourselves or trying to minimize the horrific gravity of the offense. That would not facilitate healing. Christian forgiving transfers all blame to the cross. We find it so hard to let go and entrust the blame and justice issues to Jesus. Nevertheless, our peace and healing hinges on us letting go and letting Jesus bear that blame so that it ends up dead and buried with him and you can rise with him to a new life.   Moreover, as a consequence of Christ taking our shame, we become spiritually united with Almighty God. That opens up amazing possibilities, even miracles.   By miracles I mean sudden, dramatic healing of emotional wounds, rather than a more gradual recovery. Whether it is sudden or slow, the healing is still from God and almost always the slow healing does us the most good spiritually.   If miracles could be guaranteed, they would be labeled natural events, not miracles, even though the same God is as much behind the painting of this evening’s sunset as he is behind the most spectacular, instantaneous inner healing. I cannot guarantee the speed of healing. Nevertheless, there is mind-boggling power in prayers to the God of the universe, through Jesus (the only One by whom anyone can gain access to the God of gods).   The overview so far provided is too brief to make much sense, but see if the following expresses your feelings.   Like so many other people, I’ve wrestled with the issue of blame, and nothing I’ve tried has brought me peace. I need a new approach.   I need a revelation of how real and powerful Jesus is and how him suffering undeserved pain, shame and blame can bring me supernatural healing.   Of course, God is not human, and yet having had my trust violated by a human has made it hard for me to love and trust  anyone  – even God. Cold logic might say there is no reason to fear that God might act like a sinful, fallible human, but what I’ve suffered seems so overwhelming that it clouds my perception of everything.   Living, as I do, in a world crammed with people who pretend to love, just to get their selfish way – or even well-meaning people who unintentionally end up hurting others – it is hard to believe that God is so different. If, however, he is morally perfect, and filled with genuine love untainted by the slightest trace of human selfishness, then he truly is trustworthy. If God has infinite knowledge and wisdom, he must understand me even better than I understand myself. And if he really is love – not lust – then he will be patient and understanding as I try to reach out to him.   To be healed and freed from the oppressive burden of blame, I need to stop blaming myself and/or blaming others and/or blaming God. But this seems beyond me. I need divine help. And blame must go somewhere. Grave offenses have occurred. Justice must be done.   If God is truly good and a God of justice, then satisfying the need for justice must be an even bigger issue with him than with me – and it is huge with me. At the same time, being both faultlessly good and loving, he must want offenders to change and long to forgive them. Meeting all these requirements is simply too much for any human. I need God’s help to trust him to do it – and do it well. I need to hand all blame over to Jesus, not because he deserves blame but because if he somehow died for the sins of the entire world, he must want to take this burden from me.   Every journey must start somewhere. And we can’t attempt this one alone. We need divine help. Involving God is comforting, not the slightest scary, but it can seem scary because few of us realize how gentle and understanding God is.   There’s a simple way to ease you into this. If you agree with the last section of colored text, you can turn it into a down-to-earth prayer by reading it (aloud or inwardly) to God. To make it even easier, I have made that section into a prayer by reproducing it with minor changes and a couple more thoughts. For this prayer,  click here.

Breaking habits, addiction, temptation and demonic powers Becoming a Winner!   Finding Supernatural Power to Break Free   *  Breaking the Stranglehold of Habit   *  Spiritual Warfare   *  Pleasure Secrets   *  The Unexpected Thrill of Obeying God   *  Demons?   Beating Temptation and Satanic Attack     You’ve made it!   Blinding light flashes from the Throne. Creation quakes. On Heaven’s Throne is a shining figure robed in purity. Powerful. Majestic. Holy. Who is this mighty victor, the one deemed worthy to rule forever, the joy of the Father’s heart? You. Yes, you, the butt of jokes, the focus of Satan’s slur campaign.   Christian, through the  miracle of spiritual rebirth,  you and Christ are one. That makes his victory, your victory. Before him, every knee in every universe and dimension must bow. That’s  your  victory. Right now, no matter how defeated you may feel, you are enthroned with Christ as head of the universe.   A little boy walks tall when his father becomes world champion. Even though the boy contributed nothing to the achievement, his father’s glory exalts him, flooding him with new confidence. Total strangers give him new respect. That’s the faintest shadow of what Jesus’ triumph has done for us. We walk ever so tall because our supernatural union with Christ far exceeds the deepest bond between father and son, and Christ’s incomparable victory utterly outclasses any human achievement.   Suppose a billion dollars were deposited in joint names in a special bank account, and one of those two names is yours. All you would then need to live like the billionaire you have just become is learn how to make withdrawals.   With Christ, you have joint claim to the highest honors. His victory was for  you . Heaven sees you as the champion of champions. For this eternal fact to be seen on earth, all you need do is learn how to draw on the victory that all of heaven recognizes as being yours. In the rest of this webpage we’ll examine how to make that victory obvious. No matter what illusions temporary circumstances might suggest, however, in the eyes of all spiritual powers, whether satanic or divine, you have already made it.   Living a holy life is simply letting Christ, who now lives inside you, express himself through your actions. It’s letting run wild the divine genes (the new nature) you inherited when you were born again into God’s family. Living a Christian life is not about exercising will power, but reveling in God’s love, living the supernatural; doing all manner of things that were previously impossible for you.   Being free from enslaving and degrading habits is a wonderfully fulfilling and liberating way to live, but don’t imagine it is the way to gain God’s approval. You won that approval the moment you trusted Jesus for your forgiveness. You can’t get any more forgiven, and any more the object of divine favor than the moment you first trusted Jesus to do it all for you – when you had nothing but sin to offer your Lord.   Non-Christians suppose that by cutting sin out of their lives they could reach a holy God. It could never work. Lifetime perfection is God’s minimum standard. We cannot even start with a clean sheet, because none of us can remove our past failures. Because of Jesus, however, Christians have already reached God. They can live a holy life because the holy God lives within them.   When Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, she suddenly became rich. Suddenly, she was royalty. Suddenly, she was famous and important. She was one with Charles. His assets and honor became hers, as much as they had ever been his. That is rather like your transformation, the moment you were born again. Your status and assets skyrocketed, although at the time you were only vaguely conscious of the enormity of what happened  (More) .   After that famous wedding, Princess Diana underwent a second, much slower and uneven transformation. Step by faltering step, a shy, plainly dressed girl gradually became a confident, sophisticated, superbly dressed woman who captured the admiration of millions. That second change was only possible because she firmly believed in the reality of the first transformation – that she really was royal, rich, important and famous. Had she kept telling herself that she was insignificant, that she had no right to Charles’ money, that nothing she did was of any consequence, she would still have had much, but that second change would never have occurred. As it was, she would probably have blossomed further, had she felt more secure in Charles’ love and in the acceptance and approval of his family.   This webpage focuses on that second type of transformation that can be yours. The change will be slow and uneven, teetering on how secure you feel in God’s love, and how convinced you are of that change of status that occurred the moment you were united to Christ.     Temptation is spiritual rape   Do you think the holy Son of God was tempted to lust? Was Christ tempted to punch someone, to hold a grudge, to be lazy, to swear, to get drunk? That is surely what Hebrews means. Hebrews 2:17  For this reason he [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God . . .  (18)  Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 4:15  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted  in every way, just as we are  – yet was without sin. (Emphasis mine.) Hebrews 7:26  Such a high priest [Jesus] meets our need – one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.     Temptation occurs when an evil intelligence violates your mind, invading your inner person with its filth. The temptation could be anything that is not in your highest interest. It might be to hate yourself, to over-indulge, to doubt, to smoke, to hold a grudge; the list is endless. It is something that in the short term seems right or desirable but in the long term ends up robbing and hurting you. For brevity, I call the source of temptation Satan, or the devil, although we are more likely to be tempted by one of his underlings than by the Prince of demons himself.   To understand the nature of spiritual rape, we need to consider physical rape. I’d rather avoid this distasteful subject, but I feel the need to demonstrate just how disgusting temptation is.   Suppose the trusted boyfriend of a virtuous girl one day goes way too far. He forcibly but painlessly immobilizes her and begins to gently and seductively violate her. Her mind is repulsed by what is happening, but her body is designed to respond to certain stimuli by sending pleasure signals to the brain. This physiological fact has nothing to do with her purity or morality. It simply means she is normal. After the ordeal she ends the relationship and yet, for years afterwards her sensitive conscience is tormented with false pangs of guilt; wrongly imagining she must have the morality of a harlot to have had her feelings of horror tinged with the slightest feelings of pleasure.   She eventually marries but she cannot forget her involuntary bodily reaction to the rape in which pleasure signals were sent to the brain. She so despises herself for feelings she had no control over that she becomes convinced that her husband must secretly loathe her for her past, even though he actually sees his darling as being utterly pure.   Despite all her husband’s loving assurances and tenderness, this poor woman so focuses on that awful event that she continues to feel immoral, unloved and unwanted. Overwhelmed by this illusion, she starts telling herself that she has so ruined her life that she could not be more immoral if she became a prostitute. Tragically, after years of such thinking, convinced she is doing her husband a favor, she leaves the man she mistakenly thinks can no longer love her. Finding no other means of support and imagining she has no purity to preserve, this highly moral woman ends up the harlot she wrongly saw herself as being.   Sadly, such a route to promiscuity is not uncommon for sexual abuse victims, harassed by false feelings of guilt over the pleasure signals involuntarily sent to the brain when their will was violated.   A similar tragedy could be played out in anyone of us if we condemn ourselves over the fact that temptation, by its very nature, makes sin seem enticingly pleasurable.   When Jesus was being tempted, the purest person ever to walk this planet was being spiritually raped. The Holy Lord was subjected to the inner urge to sin; a craving to do wrong. His mind and spirit were repeatedly and shamefully violated. You know he emerged from the horrific experience with his purity intact.   So do not despise yourself when evil thoughts come to you, or when you find yourself longing to do wrong. It simply means that, like God’s holy Son, and all his saints, you have been spiritually molested. And like the most despicable child molester, the Evil One tries to make his innocent victim feel guilty for  his  crime, and for pleasurable feelings he induces.   It’s only if you cease trying to resist those evil thoughts and urges, that the harassment could touch your purity. And even if you totally gave in, you would have no rational basis for continuing to imagine you are impure, because the instant you return to your Savior with genuine regret, you are again spotless in the eyes of the Holy One.   Does Satan often appear and speak to you face to face? He’s far too cunning. He speaks in your mind, pretending to be your own thoughts. Disown those thoughts. Refuse to cave in to false guilt.   Imagine how hard it was to tempt Jesus. Satan had to try to persuade the Son of God to act totally out of character. And yet it is exactly the same when the Evil One tempts you. He tries to inflict you with a desire to do something utterly contrary to your nature. The real you is Christlike. From the moment you were born again, Christ took up residence inside you. You gained his goodness, his holy character, his purity of motives, his inexhaustible love. You might have committed a certain sin hundreds of times a year since childhood, and continued for the many years you have been born again. Nevertheless, every time you commit that sin, you are acting out of character. Satan will muster all his brainwashing skills to try fooling you into thinking that sinning is your real nature. You will be like a rape victim plagued by a wrong self image. This is more than just unpleasant; keep believing that false self image, and you will end up acting as if it were true.   We find ourselves back at the same point as when we considered Princess Di: so much hinges on us fully grasping the enormity of the transformation that took place when we were born again and how special that makes us in God’s eyes.   Facing temptation is engaging in spiritual combat in which victory depends on whether we can trust God to love us enough to be our personal bodyguard. It would be highly dangerous to go into spiritual battle, tragically handicapped by imagining you are one of God’s less loved children. Before engaging the enemy you need the assurance that God’s love for you is so intense that he is fiercely devoted to protecting you. You need to know you are one of God’s favorites, and that he has made you so pure that he is proud of you. If you have the slightest doubt about this, or could benefit from the slightest building up in this area, bookmark this page (or note this website address) and go to the following webpages.   You Are loved!   To God You Are Special   If you feel battered by guilt feelings, there is also a helpful series of beginning with:   Handling Guilt     Tragically, countless thousands are under the mistaken impression that they have been born again. You can walk down a church aisle, repeat a prayer, spend your life acting like a devoted Christian, even have prayers answered, and still miss this elusive experience. If you have the slightest doubt about whether you have had this spiritual transformation, I beg you to read a fascinating webpage:     You Can Find Love       So how do we beat temptation?   James 4:7 brings it together:   1.   Let Jesus rule in your life  (Life’s most exciting adventure)   ‘Submit to God,’ is the way James put it. Let God control your life.   At first thought, this seems so oppressively restrictive that it’s frightening. And we’re scared we’ll be told to go somewhere awful and do something embarrassing. In reality, for you to fear God’s commands is as unnatural as a much loved baby fearing its mother’s breast; as a shivering child fearing sunshine; as someone sick fearing health. To obey God is to say good-bye to mistakes and regret and open the door to excitement and achievement.   No one understands you like your Maker. No one knows your future like your God. No one has your best interest at heart like the One who shed his blood for you. No one can bring you happiness like the Inventor of sex and sunsets, sight and sound, touch and taste, life and beauty. He alone offers heaven.   When you really analyze it, nothing could be more exciting, fulfilling and rewarding than God’s desires for you. Fearing God’s will is as irrational as worrying about what the world’s best mechanic might do to your car, and as stupid as insisting on defusing a bomb for fear that experts will not do it properly. The Almighty, your Creator and Savior, is selflessly devoted to maximizing your happiness. Moreover he has infinite knowledge. When God asks you to do something, he is granting you the unique privilege of tapping into the greatest Mind in the universe. You have the opportunity to do something infinitely smart.  Explore that thought.  It could add a whole new dimension to your life.   Disregard your Maker’s right to tell you what to do. He merely gave you life and everything you’ve ever touched. He holds your atoms together and gave you the brain cells you think with. Forget that Christ purchased your allegiance by trading his life for yours, becoming the devil’s plaything on the cross so that evil couldn’t touch you. And overlook the power of God to determine your eternal destiny. Consider merely God’s infinite knowledge, perfect goodness, and self-sacrificing devotion to your highest good. That alone is enough to force the conclusion that disregarding God’s slightest suggestion is the height of stupidity.   Yet another exhilarating thing about God’s will for you is that it is not only perfected by infinite love, it is backed by infinite power. It is not only achievable, it is unstoppable. For as long as you let Jesus rule your life, nothing can thwart it. Do you believe God is all-powerful? Then you believe he could over-ride your every weakness. He could ask nothing of you that he couldn’t do through you. And if he has a speck of love, or any respect for his reputation, he’s not going to command, and then abandon you to your own resources. It’s exciting when God asks the impossible of you. A miracle is around the corner!   Since God, in his love, longs to see you reach your highest potential, his desires for you will stretch you to the limit. But no matter how Satan tries to distort that thrilling truth into something scary, there is always something more frightening than doing God’s will –  not  doing God’s will. The mere fact that we could fear God’s beautiful will is clear proof that God has a spiritual enemy who carpet bombs our minds with malicious untruths. Nothing could be wiser, or better, than obeying the God who has a sacrificial commitment to giving you the very best.   God telling you to do something is the Almighty Lord expressing his desire for you to enjoy his best. And obedience is simply receiving that love, delighting and rejoicing in the beauty, perfection and security of God’s yearnings for your welfare. We only disobey when we secretly believe we are smarter than God, that his love for us is inferior, or that he is so weak that our inadequacies could nullify his power. Obedience is love made real.   It has rightly been said that God’s will is the greatest good his infinite wisdom can devise. Snuggle into it. Experience the exquisite perfection of his love plans for you. Then luxuriate in the security of knowing that of every possible alternative, you have chosen the very best.   Note that submission to God is letting God be God – allowing Jesus to assume his rightful place in your life. The emphasis is not on you trying to obey, but on Jesus ruling. It is letting him do the work. It is avoiding taking upon ourselves responsibilities that don’t belong to us. The Evil One would love to distort this into a dreary put down, but it is actually a glorious relief. We’re free to enjoy life as God’s children and leave all the hard work to Jesus. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God, Jesus has already done it. We don’t have to defeat sin, Jesus has already done it.   Submitting to God must never be thought of as obeying a set of rules. That’s dull and cold. And God is neither. Following a list of dos and do nots is not following God the person, but something impersonal. It brings with it the great danger of shutting God out. Submitting to God is loving God the person, getting as close to him as you can, and drawing strength and comfort and direction from him. It is driving with God in the front seat with you, enjoying his companionship. From time to time in your conversation he will say such things as, ‘Turn left. . . . You’ll need to slow down a bit here. . . . Let me show you a short cut. . . . This next part is easy, drive however you choose, I know you’ll handle it well. . . . Further on it gets tricky. Better let me do the driving for that stretch.’   Now let’s be brutally frank. God’s directions are seldom that clear, although when the situation demands that degree of clarity, he will give it. Mostly, God leads by such things as vague feelings. That can be frustrating, but it’s our opportunity to let faith rise, trusting God to guide with whatever degree of clarity divine wisdom knows is best, while we play our part by drawing close and listening intently. God and I seem to have an on-going argument. ‘Speak louder!’ I keep telling God. And I think he keeps replying, ‘Listen harder!’   An important aspect of submission involves avoiding battles God has not authorized you to fight. Sam has the commendable self-control to never switch a television on, but if it’s on, and a sex scene appears, he rarely musters the will power to switch it off until he has seen it all. Jody finds it very hard to resist sex when subjected to heavy petting, but she can carefully pray as to who she dates and ensure she only goes out with men she can trust to never touch her where they shouldn’t. Sam must avoid all television that has a remote chance of a sex scene and Jody must avoid getting into compromising situations with men. In other words, they are winners, provided they are not so foolish as to engage the enemy on a front where they have no right to be.   Some situations God permits no Christian to enter. Some situations he permits only certain Christians to enter. Don’t be influenced by what other Christians can get away with. Listen for your Commander-in-chief’s personal orders. We live in a war zone. Various areas are subjected to differing types of attack, and some areas are more heavily protected. The Commander-in-chief knows his troops, and he has equipped them to engage in different types of warfare. All of us are safe, provided we each follow his orders, staying within our designated areas.   Sin has you in its deadly sights. It’s about to pull the trigger. Jesus steps in front of you and takes the bullet, so that you can live and enjoy life. To try fighting sin without your Savior’s constant help is to slap Christ in the face, then walk out of his protection into the devil’s hail of bullets. If we face temptation alone (ie without Christ), sin will mow us down. But we need never be so foolish. We need never face temptation alone.   The moment Joe Ordinary becomes a police officer he gains special power over evil. He’s no stronger, nor smarter, yet suddenly law breakers fear him. His extraordinary power rests entirely on him submitting to his superiors. Disregard their orders and he would be suspended from the force. His powers would immediately vanish, and law breakers could walk all over him. Likewise, our power over sin hinges on our submission to God.   Because your power link with God is critical to the defeat of evil, the Enemy will do all he can to drive a wedge between you and your Savior. He’ll do his best to make you feel that God is harsh, thinks lowly of you, and so on. If you have the slightest doubt about God’s feelings for you, I again remind you of the following webpages.   You Are loved!   To God You Are Special   And a helpful series of webpages beginning with:   Handling Guilt 2.     Resist the devil   Stubbornly refuse to give in. How dare that slimy loser act as if he owns you! Dig your heels in.   Imagine your father buys you a sleek second hand car for your eighteenth birthday. Next day, the former owner arrives, demanding your car keys. ‘No way!’ you exclaim.   ‘It’s my car!’ he shouts. He’s bigger and older than you.   The car’s mine!’ you protest, ‘My father paid for it!’   The veins in his neck bulge. ‘You know nothing! Hand me the keys!’   ‘Get out of here, or I’ll call my Dad and he’ll have you for trespassing and for fraud!’   That’s resisting. It’s standing up for your rights. It’s refusing to be cheated out of something Father has given you. It’s preventing a con artist from walking off with things that cost your Father greatly.   Over and over, Scripture affirms  our  need to take action against sin. Here’s a sample:   Get rid  of all moral filth – James 1:21   Rid yourselves  of all malice . . . deceit, hypocrisy, etc – 1 Peter 2:1   Put on  the new self – Colossians 3:10   Put aside  the deeds of darkness – Romans 13:12   Put off  your old self – Ephesians 4:22   Put to death  . . . whatever belongs to your earthly nature – Colossians 3:5   Throw off  . . . the sin that so easily entangles – Hebrew 12:1   Notice, it’s not all God. We would have to cut our Bible to shreds to produce one that says God does it all. We ourselves are expected to put in an effort. This surprises many people, and others get it wrong, so let’s see what is involved.   Sin kidnapped us, and our effort does nothing to pay our ransom. Only Jesus could pay that exorbitant price. Innocence was nailed so that we, the guilty, could go free. All we do is stand up for the rights Christ paid for in blood. Resisting the devil is simply cooperating with God; choosing to enjoy the freedom Christ has won for us. All the hard work has already been done for us, and even then God is with us every step, to ensure we make it.   But there’s a spine tingling reason why God wants you to play a part. Like the proudest father, your God wants you to be like him. The Almighty actually wants to share his throne with you! This is serious, and glorious. You are being readied for a heavenly crown, not a party hat. That’s why God has entrusted you with a role in resisting Satan’s attempt to trespass on your turf. You are being trained to rule.   You’ve probably heard of people being effortlessly freed from sin’s grip, such as heroin addicts delivered from addiction without a single withdrawal symptom. That’s the mighty God we serve! For God to forever do everything for us, however, would be like a teacher never trusting us to sit for a test, but always taking the test for us. Eventually, like the devoted parent he is, our heavenly Father wants us to begin to grow up and start exercising the authority he has proudly entrusted to us. Maturity must never be confused with lack of intimacy with God, however. We exercise spiritual authority only by maintaining our power link with the Almighty, and letting his power flow through us.   If you’re looking for a soft religion, dump Christ right now.  Hebrews  urges us to look to Jesus for inspiration. He suffered enormously to make us pure. And he chose the agony, knowing it would be totally eclipsed by the joy it would finally produce. Your war with sin,  Hebrews  continues, hasn’t yet reached the point where your blood pours out. The Bible never promises that our fight with sin will be painless, just that surrender would end up being significantly more painful.     I’ve heard it said that holiness is reaching the point where you have no more longing to sin than you do to eat horse manure. Not likely. Remember Jesus, nearing starvation after eating nothing for forty days, being tempted to turn stones into bread. Remember Jesus, in the garden dripping blood-like sweat, praying ‘with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him’ (Hebrews 5:7) as he stammers, ‘Nevertheless not my will . . .’ Remember Jesus in agony on the cross, when he could have called legions of angels to his rescue. ‘He learned obedience by what he suffered,’ (Hebrew 5:8). Holiness is not reaching the point where temptation loses its attraction. Holiness is choosing God’s way when it seems every fiber of your being is crying out for the devil’s way.   To be Christlike is to be willing to suffer for the sake of God. Strong temptation toughens us. When resisted, temptation acts like your personal training coach, building you up so that you will receive more glory on the Big Day.   (For inspirational material to build courage,  click here ).   Ironically, the more prepared you are for a long, tough fight, the shorter it usually is. Once you uncover one of Satan’s schemes, and become determined to hold your ground no matter how strong the pressure gets or how long it lasts, the Enemy quickly senses he is wasting his time persisting with this tactic, and he usually backs off soon after.   Satan is furious at having lost you. He knows he has no hold over you, but if he fools you into thinking he can still boss you around, you’ll make his day. He’ll try every dirty trick he can dream up to bluff you out of all that is rightfully yours, and to cast doubt on the extent of Christ’s stupendous victory. To stand up to someone as persistent and conniving as Satan, you have to thoroughly know the rights Christ won for you, as spelt out in God’s Word.   Think of it this way. Through a life and death struggle, Jesus disarmed Satan and handed you a loaded weapon. Don’t expect Jesus to pull the trigger. That’s easy. He’ll let you have the fun of scaring off Satan. But if that diabolical cheat can fool you into thinking the weapon Jesus gave you is unloaded, he knows you won’t bother to use it. He then has nothing to fear, and he’ll walk all over you.   Because you have given Jesus control of your life, you have the upper hand whenever you meet evil. Resisting is simply realizing that your enemy is beaten, and acting accordingly. It is refusing to let a defeated enemy steal back your precious liberty and dignity that cost Christ everything. The almighty Son of God let the devil nail him, so that you could walk free. Live in that freedom. And no matter what happens, keep seeing yourself as God sees you – powerful, holy, victorious. It is this faith that makes you a conqueror.   Submit to God, resist the devil . . .   3.     And the devil will flee     We’re winners! By ignoring Satanic lies and letting Christ do all the hard work, we have the firepower to put the devil on the defensive. With Jesus in us, we make demons quake. But it is important not to misunderstand the implications. Temptation will not vanish after one token resistance. Look at Jesus’ battle in the wilderness. He held out against temptation . So what did Satan do? Hurl temptation And after that, temptation . And that was nothing like the end. Satan skulked away, only to seek a time when Jesus was more vulnerable (Luke 4:13). We don’t know how many times the devil renewed the attack. We know Jesus had to tell Peter ‘Get behind me Satan.’ We know the enemy entered into Jesus’ dear friend, Judas, to destroy the Son of God. We know Christ had a bloodcurdling battle in Gethsemane. And we know Jesus won every time.   And through him, you, too, can win every time. That’s God’s promise. It’s in black and white. There’s not the vaguest hint that you won’t feel like giving up. Nor the slightest suggestion that you won’t feel as helpless in the teeth of temptation as a mouse trapped in a lion’s cage. But there’s a divine guarantee that no matter how weak you feel, no matter how horrific your past failures, no matter how impossible it seems, you can beat every temptation that comes your way. If you ever meet a temptation too strong for you, the God who raises the sun each day has suddenly become unreliable, the God who didn’t spare his darling Son for you has suddenly lost interest in you, and the moral integrity of Holy One has collapsed.   The Devil is the Deceiver   Satan is a con artist. He wants to rip you off, cheating you out of everything that is rightfully yours. He’s the enemy of everything good, hating you with all his filthy fury. He offers the soft, warm bomb that will explode your life into a million pieces. He generously gives momentary relief and fun that leads to deeper bondage and torment; the short cut to heaven’s ecstasy that ends in hell.   With Christ having rendered all of Satan’s weapons inoperative against Christians, the Enemy has nothing left but psychological warfare – illusions, false accusations, attempted brainwashing.   Suppose you were a soldier at war, and an evil enemy had the opportunity to attempt brainwashing you. The enemy would try to wear you down by repeatedly putting thoughts into your mind that the side you serve:   is wrong, or not worth serving will lose the war, or is not strong enough to protect you has rejected or abandoned you, or does not care about you. The enemy would also try to:   isolate you make you feel useless destroy all hope. That’s the diabolical enemy you face every day. He’s the master of the half-truth. Yes, sin is delicious – like candy laced with poison. It’s true that sin is exhilarating – as exciting as skydiving without a parachute. And he’s right when he hisses that God’s ways can feel annoyingly restrictive – as confining as a parachute harness when you are plummeting to earth.   The author of pain and despair and death maliciously paints God as a killjoy. The Almighty has your highest good in focus, not some short term fizz that ultimately leaves you cold, empty and without a future. God’s way is the way of eternal joy; of love, triumph, self-respect. He’s the sole source of beauty and of everything that lasts. He empowers you to make this world a better place. He offers you protection, security, purity and wisdom. Don’t slip out of his divine embrace into the devil’s quicksand.   The Seducer makes giving up seem the easy option, but the real cost is enormous. Any area of defeat is an ugly blemish. The Lord wants to beautify your whole life but he dare not bring other things to your attention while this one is such a burden to you. So other shameful blotches, probably obvious to those who see you, remain untouched.   No matter how horrific the pain of resisting, it always ends up the genuinely easy option.   Sin is never the easy way out; the attractive alternative. Take the bait and you’ll feel the hook. Swallow the lie and you’ll writhe in regret.   The best defense against cunning lies is to fill your mind with truth. Immerse yourself in God’s Word.   Strategies   Feel defeated? Chances are that you could be weaker than you are, and still have total victory over the temptations that presently defeat you. How? By taking temptations more seriously, and drawing the line against them much earlier.   If we could only grasp the enormity of the dangers, our drive to beat temptation would skyrocket. We would sooner tap-dance on a minefield than toy with sin. And Satan would get such a scare at our new determination that we might not see him for days at a time.   Knowing how critical this is, I believe the Deceiver expends much effort trying to keep us in a fog, only vaguely of what is really at stake. I have prepared a tiny eye-opener. For a new glimpse of the seriousness of sin,  click here .   Over and over and over, Scripture insists that, like nothing else, sin has the power to destroy you. Sin is the most fearsome thing on this planet, worse than a ferocious wolf lusting after your blood. Better to lose a limb or an eye or to drown, than let it get you, warned Jesus. When a blood-crazed beast is on the prowl, the only sensible thing is to put as big a distance as possible between it and yourself. That’s how we should treat sin. Yet instead of seeing sin as a ravenous wolf with deadly fangs, we often treat it like a smelly stray pup – rather disgusting, basically harmless, at times almost cute. The thought of dabbling with sin should terrify us. If it doesn’t, we are toying with disaster. We need to  flee  from sin, warns many a verse of God’s Word.   Ways to increase the distance between you and sin   Disclaimer   I dare not try to set rules for you. My longing is that you listen intently to the Spirit of God for his direction. He alone has mapped your personal escape route. My hope is merely to offer a few suggestions for you to talk over with your Lord, and to see where he leads from there.   At all costs, avoid the horror of following a set of rules, rather than a living Savior. This double tragedy ends both in arrogance and deserting Christ. Ugly pride, even bigotry, festers when you discover you draw your line further from sin than someone else. And you are in danger of abandoning your Savior when you begin to trust your homemade rules for salvation (your holiness and protection from temptation) rather than seeding your entire faith in your crucified Lord.   Burn your bridges   What would you think if a husband told his wife he wants to be faithful to her, but explained that just in case temptation gets too strong, he will keep his former girlfriend’s phone number programmed into his phone? Well what does your Lord think if you deliberately make it easy to access drugs, or some other thing you are trying to give up? Don’t you think God sees right through a person who asks for forgiveness for substance abuse, or porn, or whatever, and keeps a tiny supply ‘just in case’? Divine forgiveness is not available to the person who is not willing to be finished with sin  (Explanation) . ‘Make no provision for the flesh,’ says Romans 13:14. In other words, store up nothing, make no allowances, for sin.   When Jesus spoke of hacking off a hand or foot, or gouging out an eye, he was not speaking literally,  (proof)  but he was describing the need for radical, painful and costly sacrifices in order to make it harder to sin. Cancer is so deadly that people are willing to lose parts of their body in order to halt its spread. If people go to such extremes to fight something that can only affect earthly life, what sacrifices should any sane person make to fight something that can afflict someone forever? Your collection of things that help you sin might have cost you a lot of money. If you don’t destroy it, however, you’ll find it will cost you a lot more still!    Here are some ways of attacking sin that you should seriously discuss with God.   Destroy all spiritually dangerous books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, addresses, phone numbers, membership cards, occult objects, illicit drugs, and so on that you own. Radically alter your television viewing habits. Most of us are so hooked on television that to keep it switched off would hurt as much as losing an eye, yet it fills our minds with sinful thoughts that we could regret for all eternity. Even most programs said to be suitable for children are tainted with impurity and ungodliness. And on commercial channels, acceptable programs can be laced with poisonous ads. If the internet presents you with temptation, obtain software designed to keep children from objectionable material. Note the circumstances in which you are most vulnerable to temptation and do all you can to avoid those situations. If, for instance, when you lie awake in the morning, your mind wanders to things it shouldn’t, try your hardest to avoid that situation. Set your alarm earlier and make sure you get up. If you find you are more vulnerable when alone, avoid that situation as much as possible. Would it help to share accommodation with someone?   Alternatively, would it help to move out? When you feel vulnerable to temptation, get your mind off it by visiting or phoning someone. Go for a walk or a drive, if it will help. Resolve that if ever you sin against someone, you will confess it to that person and put it right. If, for instance, you steal, you’ll restore what you stole, with an additional 20% as compensation. If you lie, confess it to the person you lied to. Make yourself accountable to a mature, trustworthy Christian, who is unlikely to be tempted by the knowledge that you have fallen (should the unthinkable ever happen). Be sobered by the knowledge that if ever you sin, you will have to endure the shame of confessing to your accountability partner. To maintain your purity while dating, carefully explain that saying no to something you used to do together is not because you are growing cold towards your friend. (I am appalled at what some couples do to each other and still regard themselves as virgins.) Since people differ as to what arouses them, it is important to tell each other what not to do, and to respect another’s guidelines, even if to you it seems quite innocent. A person may have got into a habit of crossing a particular boundary and innocently forget. Sometimes many reminders are necessary. Be cautious about being alone together. Give the Evil One less time to entice you, by filling your life with spiritually wholesome activities – more church services, Christian fellowship, prayer, Bible study, and so on.

How important is the Old Testament to Christians? Is the Old Testament totally superseded now that we have the New Testament? Should Christians prayerfully study the Old Testament?   The New Testament was written assuming that readers are thoroughly familiar with the Old Testament. Without that background, readers of the New Testament will miss much and are in danger of misinterpreting the New Testament. Moreover, both Jesus and the New Testament writers highly revered the Old Testament as the very word of God.   Consider this famous Scripture:   2 Timothy 3:15-17  From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.   Even at the time of writing, the New Testament was only just being written (and the above ended up being part of it) and Paul is referring to the “holy Scriptures” Timothy knew in this infancy. In other words: not the New Testament but the Old Testament.   The Old Testament was divinely crafted to warn and instruct those who live under the New Covenant:   Romans 15:4  For whatever things were written before were written for our learning . . .   1 Corinthians 10:5-11  . . . God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.  Now these things were  our  examples , to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were. . . . Let us not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell. . . . Don’t grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer.  Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for  our  admonition , on whom the ends of the ages have come.  (Emphasis mine).   1 Corinthians 9:9-10  For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it for the oxen that God cares, or does he say it assuredly for our sake? . . .   Consider also:   1 Peter 1:10-12  Concerning this salvation, the [Old Testament] prophets sought and searched diligently. They prophesied of the grace that would come to  you , searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to . . . . To them it was revealed, that  they served not themselves, but  you  . . .  (Emphasis mine.)   To begin to understand the immense importance of the Old Testament, please read  The Inspiration & Reliability of the Bible  and follow the links. You will find that it focuses on the Old Testament.   Related Links Jesus’ Reliance on the Old Testament Spiritual Essentials for Accurate Bible Interpretation The Inspiration and Reliability of the Bible

Jesus’ Reliance on the Old Testament We are about to explore Jesus’ own words to see whether the Jewish Bible was foundational to everything Jesus said and did. This subject is of vital importance to two issues: 1. Is the Bible just a religious book or the uniquely divinely inspired, thoroughly dependable, Word of God? 2. Was Jesus in any way influenced by Indian religion or were his teachings and beliefs founded exclusively on the religion of what Christians call the Old Testament (but what I shall call the Jewish Bible or Jewish Scriptures)? Depending upon which of the above most interests you, to get the most out of this webpage you should have read either: 1. Inspiration & Reliability of the Bible 2. Jesus Visited India? Before plunging in, there’s a matter we need to face. For people like me who are not in any sense Jews, it initially seems weird or even offensive to put any emphasis upon Jews or the revelation they claim God gave them. Doesn’t God care about the rest of humanity? What’s so special about Jews? It turns out that the Jewish Bible records God specifically telling the Jews there is nothing special about them: Deuteronomy 7:7  The Lord didn’t set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples. Deuteronomy 9:5-6  Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know therefore, that the Lord your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people. Ezekiel 20:13-14  But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they didn’t walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keep, he shall live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them. But I worked for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them out. Ezekiel 36:32  Nor for your sake do I this, says the Lord, be it known to you: be ashamed and confounded for your ways, house of Israel. In fact, it would be quite a task to count all the times the Jewish Bible says that the Jews disappointed and angered God by their stubborn rebelliousness, worshipping other gods, and so on. God Not Impressed With Jews Just a Few Examples Exodus 32:9-14  The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people. Now therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation.” Moses begged the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” The Lord repented of the evil which he said he would do to his people. 2 Kings 17:14-15  Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in the Lord their God. They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. 2 Chronicles 30:8  Now don’t be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; but yield yourselves to the Lord, and enter into his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. 2 Chronicles 36:16  but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the Lord’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy. Nehemiah 9:17,26,29  and refused to obey, neither were they mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. . . . Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their back, and killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. . . . and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they dealt proudly, and didn’t listen to your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances, (which if a man does, he shall live in them), turned their backs, stiffened their neck, and would not hear. Psalms 78:8  and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. Psalms 78:21-22  Therefore the Lord heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel, because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation. Jeremiah 7:24  But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. Jeremiah 13:10  This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing. Jeremiah 35:15  I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and don’t go after other gods to serve them, and you shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me. Ezekiel 2:4  The children are impudent and stiff-hearted: I am sending you to them . . . Zechariah 7:11-12  But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which the Lord of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of Armies. Nevertheless, the Jewish Scriptures reveal that despite their many serious failings, God singled out the Jews specifically because he loves all peoples and that he chose the Jews as the means whereby God would bless all humanity. The Bible reveals that before earth even existed, God planned to send the eternal Son of God into the world so that all humanity could be saved. In all human history, this special event would happen just once. In order to fulfil his task, he would need to become human and, of necessity, every human has a specific ancestry. In theory, it could have been any race of people that he was born into, but one race had to be selected and for centuries God prepared that race for this great event and he used his revelation to them and the history of his dealings with them to teach the rest of the world about God. The promise was first given to Abraham: Genesis 22:18 All the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring . . . As Abraham’s descendants multiplied, the Lord kept narrowing down which descendants the promise applied to until finally revealing that this uniquely significant person would be a descendant of King David. The Promised Blessing to All Peoples When God chose Abraham, he told him: Genesis 12:3  . . . All the families of the earth will be blessed through you. This promise was later repeated; clearly specifying that it would be through his  offspring  that this blessing to all nations would come: Genesis 22:18  All the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring, because you have obeyed my voice. The promise was further narrowed down to only one of Abraham’s children, Isaac, whom God told: Genesis 26:4  I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and will give all these lands to your offspring. In your offspring will all the nations of the earth be blessed Again this promise was narrowed down to just one of Abraham’s children, Jacob (Israel), to whom he said: Genesis 28:14  Your offspring will be as the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in your offspring will all the families of the earth be blessed. It was further narrowed down to descendants of David. In a psalm about the king (i.e. a descendent of David) we read: Psalms 72:17   . . . Men shall be blessed by him. All nations will call him blessed.   Other prophesies confirm that the promised Messiah (Christ) would be a descendant of David: Prophecies in the Jewish Bible of the Messiah being a descendant of David: Isaiah 9:7  Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will perform this. Isaiah 11:1  A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse [David’s father], and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit. Jeremiah 23:5  Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. Ezekiel 34:23-24  I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken it. This was the common understanding of Jews in Jesus’ Day: Luke 1:69-70  and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old) Matthew 22:42  saying, “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “Of David [i.e. descendant of].” And, of course, Jesus was a descendant of David. (In Jesus’ time they often used the expression  son of  to mean  descendent of.  David had, of course, died centuries ago.) Matthew 1:1  The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew 1:20  But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 9:27  As Jesus passed by from there, two blind men followed him, calling out and saying, “Have mercy on us, son of David!” Matthew 12:23  All the multitudes were amazed, and said, “Can this be the son of David?” Matthew 15:22  Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, you son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!” Matthew 20:30  Behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, you son of David!” Matthew 20:31  The multitude rebuked them, telling them that they should be quiet, but they cried out even more, “Lord, have mercy on us, you son of David!” Matthew 21:9  The multitudes who went in front of him, and those who followed, kept shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”   The above outline raises another matter that is too complex and would be digressing too far from the purpose of this webpage to address here: What about those who, for such reasons as where or when they lived, die before hearing Jesus’ message? I believe the Bible strongly hints that they do not all face the same eternal fate as those who deliberately reject Jesus. The Bible isn’t big on satisfying idle curiosity, however. It keeps its focus on the practical reality of what you and I who have the privilege of reading the Bible must do now that we know of Jesus. I am willing to take you to the very edge of my understanding of what happens to those who miss out on hearing Jesus’ message, but I need another series of webpages in which to do it. At the end of this current webpage is a link to that series. Now, with introductions out of the way, let’s enter the heart of this webpage. Casual readers will miss many of Jesus’ references to the Jewish Bible. To locate them, one must know that in Jesus’ day these sacred writings were sometimes referred to as Scripture, but a major part was often called the Law or [the writings of] Moses, another major part was called [the writings of] the Prophets, and yet another part was the Psalms. Sometimes Jesus introduced a reference to the Jewish Bible by saying, “It is written . . .” Matthew 4:7  Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’ ”   Matthew 11:10  For this is he, of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’   Matthew 21:13  He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!”   Matthew 26:24  The Son of Man goes, even as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”   Matthew 26:31  Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’   Luke 4:4  Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”   Luke 4:8  Jesus answered him, “Get behind me Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’ ”   Luke 10:26  He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”   Luke 18:31  He took the twelve aside, and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be completed.   Luke 20:17  But he looked at them, and said, “Then what is this that is written, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the chief cornerstone?’   Luke 21:22  For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.   Luke 22:37  For I tell you that this which is written must still be fulfilled in me: ‘He was counted with transgressors.’ For that which concerns me has an end.”   Luke 24:44  He said to them, “This is what I told you, while I was still with you, that all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me must be fulfilled.”   Luke 24:46  He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day   John 6:45  It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’’ . . .   John 8:17  It’s also written in your law that the testimony of two people is valid.   John 10:34  Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’   John 15:25  But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’   At times, however, one simply has to be highly familiar with the Jewish Scriptures to recognize a Bible quote or an allusion to one. Some Bible publishers make it easier by inserting into the text (sometimes via a footnote) the location in the Jewish Bible of the text that Jesus is referring to. Here are some of the people from the Jewish Scriptures that Jesus specifically referred to by name, treating them all as historical figures who have much to teach us about God: Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Noah, David, Solomon, Queen of Sheba, Elijah, the widow in Zarephath, Elisha, Naaman, Isaiah, Jonah and Zechariah. He referred to no Indian, (nor anyone from my own ancestry). The Jewish Bible did not merely influence Jesus’ teaching, however, nor did he just keep referring to it, he frequently quoted it. The following quotes might seem short but everything in the Gospels had to be brief because books – the raw materials and reproduction (meticulous copying by hand) – were extremely expensive. What is significant is that the quotes come from diverse parts of the Jewish Scriptures. Sometimes Jesus even rolled into one statement a compilation of quotes from different parts of the Jewish Scriptures, thus indicating that he was so devoted to it that he had memorized much of it – perhaps all of it. Matthew 9:13  But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ . . .   Matthew 10:35-36  For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s foes will be those of his own household. [Micah 7:6]   Matthew 11:10  For this is he, of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’   Matthew 12:5, 7  Or have you not read in the law, that on the Sabbath day, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless? . . . But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.   Matthew 13:14-15  In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, ‘By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive: for this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again; and I would heal them.’   Matthew 15:4  For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’   Matthew 15:7-9  You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, ‘These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.’ .”   Matthew 19:17-19  He said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” Jesus said, “‘You shall not murder.’ ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ‘You shall not steal.’ ‘You shall not offer false testimony.’ ‘Honor your father and mother.’ And, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”   Matthew 21:13  He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ . . .”   Matthew 22:36-37  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ . .”   Matthew 22:43-44  He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?’   Matthew 23:39  For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” [Psalm 118:26]   Matthew 26:31  Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’   Mark 12:10-11  Haven’t you even read this Scripture: ‘The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord, it is marvellous in our eyes’?   Luke 4:4  Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”   Luke 4:8  Jesus answered him, “Get behind me Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’ ”   Luke 4:12  Jesus answering, said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”   Luke 11:49  Therefore also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles; and some of them they will kill and persecute.   Luke 20:37-40  But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ . . . Some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you speak well.” They didn’t dare to ask him any more questions.   Luke 22:36-37  Then he said to them, “ . . . which is written must still be fulfilled in me: ‘He was counted with transgressors.’ . . .”   John 6:45  It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father, and has learned, comes to me.   John 7:38  He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.   John 10:34  Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’   John 15:25  But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’   Examples of Jesus showing significant understanding of the Jewish Bible without specifically quoting it: Luke 2:46-47  [When Jesus was only twelve] After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the middle of the teachers . . . All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. Luke 11:53-54  As he said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be terribly angry, and to draw many things out of him; lying in wait for him, and seeking to catch him in something he might say, that they might accuse him. John 7:23  If a boy receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me, because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath? John 8:17  It’s also written in your law that the testimony of two people is valid. Jesus saw the Jewish Bible as so central to his earthly mission that he kept affirming over and over that minute details about him, and key events affecting his stay on earth, were prophesied in the Jewish Bible. Moreover, despite Jesus citing so many Jewish Scriptures as prophesying significant events in his life, the Gospel writers, in their comments, provide many additional ones. It seems likely that one reason for the Gospel writers doing this is that they were sharing what Jesus revealed to his disciples during these two events after his resurrection from the dead: 1. Jesus speaking to two of his followers as they walked to Emmaus   Luke 24:25-27  He said to them, “Foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.   2. Jesus, addressing the apostles and others who had gathered in Jerusalem:   Luke 24:44-45  He said to them, “This is what I told you, while I was still with you, that all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures.   Like many other people, I have found still more examples of Jewish Scriptures pointing to Jesus (a link at the end of this webpage cites some of them). Finding these is simply a manifestation of Jesus’ promise that when he left earth he would send the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers:   John 16:13-14  However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth . . . He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you.   Here’s an indication of how much Jesus saw the Jewish Bible as being hand in glove with his own life and ministry:   John 5:39-40, 45-46  You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me. Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life.  . . . Don’t think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, even Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed [the sacred writings of] Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.   Besides Jesus seeing himself and events impacting his life as fulfilling the prophecies of the Jewish Bible, he saw himself as belonging to a long line of  Jewish  prophets. For example, he implied that true prophets die in Jerusalem like he did:   Luke 13:33-34   . . . for it can’t be that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem.’ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!   Such statements seem to exclude the possibility of Jesus seeing anyone from other races who preceded him as being true messengers from God. Jesus saw himself as the culmination of that line of Jewish prophets. For instance, in Mark 12 he told a parable in which he likened Jewish prophets to servants, each of whom was martyred. Finally, the owner of the vineyard (representing God) “still having one” – not a mere servant, but his very “beloved son” (representing Jesus).   The New Testament book of Hebrews crystallizes this with these words:   Hebrews 1:1-2  God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.     Most people underrate the full extent to which all of Jesus’ teaching were founded on and saturated with the Jewish Scriptures. Even aspects of Jesus’ message that are commonly thought to be departures from the Jewish Bible were actually taught there.   For instance, Jesus referred to God as being a father. Many people suppose that such an intimate view of God was a departure from Old Testament teaching. In reality, the Jewish Scriptures are filled with even more references to a tender, childlike attitude toward Almighty God than the New Testament, and their many descriptions of God’s tenderness are even more moving.   Yet another example of people thinking Jesus’ was teaching something new, when he was actually expounding Old Testament revelation, is what he said about loving one’s enemies: Proverbs 25:21  If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. When, for instance, Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan, he was specifically explaining what the Jewish Bible means by loving your neighbor. When Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you . . .” (Matthew 5:43-44), he was not correcting the Jewish Scriptures (there is no such Scripture). He was citing a non-biblical saying that was contrary to a correct understanding of the Jewish Bible. As he said in the same sermon:   Matthew 7:12  Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.  [i.e. the entire Old Testament]. (Emphasis mine.) Yet another example of Jesus seeming to be acting contrary to the Jewish Bible is regarding the Sabbath. A closer look, however, reveals that Jesus kept emphasizing that his treatment of the Sabbath was in accordance with Jewish Scripture. A very different type of example is when Jesus said: Matthew 5:38-41  You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. This does indeed initially read like a contradiction, but Jesus saw much of the Jewish Scriptures as detailing not how we should treat others (which, as emphasized in other parts of the Jewish Bible, is by love and mercy) but establishing laws for a nation of hard-hearted people. This is seen most clearly in Jesus’ teaching about divorce where he quoted the Jewish Scriptures to prove his argument against divorce and then added: Matthew 19:8   . . . Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so  [which he proved by quoting the biblical account of creation]. (Emphasis mine.) What nation on earth could keep from descending into chaos if thieves, thugs, wife-beaters and the like could do whatever they wanted without fear of being brought to justice? Our heart attitude toward those who personally hurt us, however, is an entirely different matter. It was not that Jesus and Moses were contradicting each other; it was that they were addressing quite different issues. Whereas Moses’ mission was more political – to reveal laws for a nation – Christ’s mission was to highlight God’s holy standards for individuals. Jesus opposed the religious leaders of the day, only because they were straying from the religion of the Jewish Bible: Matthew 15:6   . . . You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition. Matthew 23:2-3  saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat [i.e. they teach Scripture]. All things therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do, but don’t do their works; for they say, and don’t do. Matthew 23:23  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these,  and not to have left the other undone . Mark 7:5-8  The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unwashed hands?” He answered them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ “ For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men . . . .” (Emphasis mine.) Jesus regarded the Scriptures as so powerful that if people refused to respond to them they would not even respond to God if the truth were confirmed by the ultimate miracle: someone rising from the dead. He cited this conversation between a man suffering in hell, who saw Lazarus and Abraham in heaven: Luke 16:27-31   . . . I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house; for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’ “But Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ “He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ “He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’ ” It is hard for us in the modern era to grasp how prohibitively expensive books were in Jesus’ day. The exorbitant cost meant that, of financial necessity, documents had to be kept as brief as possible. To Jesus’ followers, the preservation of every unique word falling from Jesus’ lips and every detail of his life is priceless and yet so much had to be pruned out. This renders astonishing the amount of space devoted to quoting already existing, widely known documents (the Jewish Bible). It highlights just how central the Scriptures were to Jesus’ life and message. Even when producing bare summaries, writers could not quote him for long without being forced to include quotes from Scripture. They were so much at the heart of Jesus’ preaching and discussions that it was impossible to edit them out and the summary still make sense. Jesus regarded the Jewish Scriptures in a way that staggers even many Christians. For a glimpse, consider how Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24 (part of the Jewish Scriptures): Matthew 19:4-6 He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’ So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.” “He who made them . . . said . . .” affirmed Jesus, but the Jewish Scripture does not introduce the verse Jesus quoted with anything remotely like, “God said.” There are, of course, a vast number of instances when the Bible claims to be quoting God directly. Just a little earlier in the account, for instance, we read, “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” (Genesis 2:18). This is not such an instance, however. This statement reads like a comment by the human author. And yet in quoting this passage, Jesus said these were the very words of the Creator. We see something similar in Matthew 22:43 (NIV) where Jesus quotes a Bible Psalm, saying “David, speaking by the Spirit . . .” He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’?  . . .” Jesus treated the words of Scripture as having at the same time both a human author  and  a divine author, so that it was equally true to quote Scripture and say “Moses (or David and so on) said . . .” and to say “God said . . .” So, since Jesus said, “I and [God] the Father are one,” (John 10:30), he was claiming that he and the author of the Jewish Scriptures are one. Jesus’ teaching is so saturated with the Jewish Scriptures that some non-Christian Jews criticize him for being unoriginal. In reality, if Jesus’ teaching stood out as being different from Old Testament revelation, something would be terribly wrong, since a key aspect of his teaching is that he is the prophesied Jewish Messiah and that he is the culmination of a long line of Jewish messengers from God and the fulfilment of the Jewish Bible. Nevertheless, Jesus did not just cling to the Jewish Bible as the authoritative source of spiritual truth from which to instruct his followers and expose the errors of those who thought him mistaken; he relied on it privately as his personal weapon for fighting temptation and spiritual deception. We see this vividly when he was alone, being subjected to the Tempter’s concerted efforts to deceive and seduce him. Jesus’ response to each of the three temptations he faced, was to quote Scripture: Matthew 4:4-10  But he answered, “ It is written , ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ” . . .Jesus said to him, “ Again, it is written , ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’ ” . . .Then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan!  For it is written , ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’ ” The second temptation was especially insightful. The evil genius was so aware of Jesus’ dependence upon Scripture that the devil tried to turn the Bible against Jesus by hoping to use it to dupe him: Matthew 4:6  “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for  it is written , ‘He will put his angels in charge of you.’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus had no Plan B. Rather than lessen his total reliance on the Bible for his spiritual protection, his response was to cite it yet again to expose the devil’s deceitful misuse of it. Toward a Conclusion Wherever we look in Jesus’ life and message we keep finding his profound reverence for the Jewish Bible. In a prayer to God, his Father, Jesus said, “. . . Your word is truth” (John 17:17). Another time, he said “. . . Scripture can’t be broken” (John 10:35). When under pressure to compromise, he said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’ ” (Matthew 4:4). One of his greatest criticisms of people was, “ . . . You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition” (Matthew 15:6). Not surprisingly, he said such things as “My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God, and do it.” (Luke 8:21. See also Luke 11:28). He proclaimed: Luke 16:17  But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tiny stroke of a pen in the law to fall. On yet another occasion he said: Matthew 5:17-18  Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfil. For most certainly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not even one smallest letter or one tiny pen stroke shall in any way pass away from the law, until all things are accomplished. The more you delve into Jesus’ teaching and into the Jewish Bible the more you will discover how thoroughly Jesus’ teaching was based on the Jewish Bible. No wonder some Jewish critics accuse Jesus of being unoriginal! He taught that after death everyone is judged by God, as a result of which some will spend the rest of eternity in the torment of hell, whereas others will live forever in glorified bodies. Some Jews who disagreed with this teaching approached Jesus. He told them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Jesus was addressing people highly familiar with the Jewish Scriptures and yet he still insisted they did not know these Scriptures well enough to avoid falling into error. This yet again demonstrates how foundational to all spiritual revelation Jesus regarded the Jewish Scriptures (compare 2 Timothy 3:15-17). We, too, will fall into error if we do not thoroughly know the Jewish Scriptures. This is not only true spiritually; there are obvious practical reasons why anyone failing to grasp how central these Scriptures are to Jesus’ teachings will repeatedly misunderstand him. We cannot be sure of understanding anyone without thoroughly knowing that person’s language and culture and the things that are critically important to him. For just one of a multitude of examples from Jesus’ sayings, consider how he often spoke of godly people as being sheep. He would not have done so if he were in a western Twenty-First Century megacity whose inhabitants usually think it an insult to be called sheep. Likewise, he would have been misunderstood in ancient Egypt, where shepherds were despised (Genesis 46:34). To understand Jesus’ meaning we must understand that Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries saw sheep as individuals and lovable and so precious that a shepherd would risk his life for one. What makes a deep understanding of the Jewish Bible so critical is not only the unique role Jesus assigns to it as the prime source of spiritual truth, but there is a real sense in which the Jewish Bible is the theological dictionary containing all the definitions of the words Jesus used. This conclusion is inescapable, given how highly Jesus not only favored the Jewish Scriptures but revered them as the very word of God, and the overwhelming proportion of times Jesus quoted or otherwise alluded to the Jewish Scriptures in his teaching. Like a laser, Jesus cut through the spiritual views of his contemporaries. He kept correcting religious authorities; rebuking them for straying from the truth of the Bible, but not once did he attempt to “correct” Scripture. For him, the Jewish Bible was rock solid truth; the spiritual standard by which everything else must be measured. Moreover, he kept insisting that these Scriptures speak of him. So if we are to understand Jesus and his message we must view him not through the lens of our own religious background but through the lens of the Jewish Scriptures; the spiritual authority he kept measuring everything by; the sacred writings that he revered as prophetically setting out his earthly mission. Even more astonishing is that Jesus used these Scriptures to set the course for his own life. Being both sinless perfection and the eternal Son of God, Jesus was completely different from the rest of humanity. We can expect to need spiritual props that he could do without. Nevertheless, just as Jesus not only urged others to pray but relied heavily upon it to maintain his own spiritual well-being, so it was with his reliance upon Scripture. The way Jesus reverenced the Bible boggles the mind, but to reject this attitude to Scripture is to claim to know God better than the world’s greatest Teacher and to pronounce Jesus Christ a deluded fool. Hopefully, I am not so vain as to consider myself a greater spiritual authority than Jesus. My goal is to have Jesus’ attitude to the accuracy and supreme authority of the Bible and to use it to better understand his heart and his meaning. Related Pages What about those who Die without Hearing of Jesus? A Fresh Look at Messianic Prophecies The Inspiration and Reliability of the Bible

Bible uniquely inspired? Bible the Word of God? Bible divinely inspired? Bible infallible? Bible God-breathed? Divine inspiration of the Bible. Verbal inspiration of the Bible. Bible inspired by God? Verbal Plenary Inspiration. Deep experience with God and the Bible has led Christians to conclude that the Bible is so unique that there is no word in the English language to describe how this amazing book was written. When believers say the Bible is inspired by God, they have to endow the word inspired with a whole new meaning, way beyond how the word is used in any other context. A life coach might inspire (i.e. motivate) a person to achieve something extraordinary but that use of the word is utterly inadequate when it comes to describing the writing of the Bible. Theologians have had to invent that rather clumsy expression, verbal plenary inspiration to mean that the penning of every word of Scripture was carefully guided by God. On the other hand, few Bible scholars believe that God so took over the writers that they became no more than dictating machines. Especially in the original language, one can see the distinct writing style of each human writer. Nevertheless, the belief is that God partnered with them in a unique way so that the final result was truly of God. Like many Christian writers, I look to God to guide every word I write, but Christian writers see the Bible as being on an entirely different level of spiritual authority, dependability and durability. Is the Bible truly inspired by God in this unique sense? Can we stake not just our lives but our eternities on the Bible? You can become a Christian without believing the Bible is the infallible Word of God nor even believing it is uniquely inspired. It greatly affects one’s spiritual development, however, to be forever wondering which parts of the Bible can be trusted. So let’s start with the foundation of each Christian’s faith: Jesus. Let’s just simply look to him as our spiritual leader and see how he regarded the Old Testament. Did he, for example, correct this significant part of Scripture or find errors in it? Did he set himself up as a new spiritual authority who supersedes Scripture? Did he exalt and reverence it? Such questions are carefully explored in a webpage that I will introduce to you. afterward we can explore deeper into the inspiration and reliability of the rest of the Bible but this is the logical starting point. Unless you prefer me to take you on a meaningless fantasy trip, I am forced to keep citing the most ancient, most attested and most historically accurate documents we have about Jesus. There are several criteria one must consider: * How soon after Jesus’ death the document was written * The time gap between the writing of the account and the earliest surviving manuscripts * The number of surviving ancient manuscripts * The degree of agreement among the ancient manuscripts * The extent to which geographical, cultural and historical details in the account agree with facts known from other sources * The reliance upon eyewitnesses and careful investigation of the facts (a rarity in ancient times) The documents that stand head and shoulders above any other contenders happen to be the ancient library now known as the New Testament. For an example of the care taken, see Luke 1:1-4 For confirmation that these documents are without rival, see F. F. Bruce The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Sixth Edition, 1981, Eerdmans). To avoid giving an inflated impression of how frequently Jesus did or said various things, I almost always omit citing additional accounts of the same event in other Gospels. Although in authenticity and dependability, no other source of information about Jesus remotely approaches the diverse writings that now form the New Testament, people feel uncomfortable about relying on these records. The nagging concern is whether all this detailed documentation of Jesus’ life and teaching was somehow doctored. It is not feasible to suppose such doctoring of multiple accounts (all of which we now know were completed close in time to the events they record and accurately preserved since then). But here’s the clincher: who could think of themselves as believers and faithful followers of Jesus – as the writers of these accounts clearly considered themselves to be – while being so ashamed of Jesus as to deliberately mutilate accounts of his teaching? More disturbing still: it is an insult to God himself for anyone to suppose that these ancient accounts of Jesus’ ministry might have prejudicially removed reference to key aspects of Jesus’ life and teaching. What makes this such an insult is that Jesus, after considerable prayer, handpicked the twelve apostles to personally train as the custodians of his message and the ones who would “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” If Jesus’ staggering claims are true, such as “No one comes to [God] the Father except through me” (John 14:6), for the record of his message to have been lost or distorted for subsequent generations would be a tragedy beyond belief. Moreover, Jesus declared, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Mark 13:31). Since Jesus opted not to leave behind any of his own writings, no responsibility other than Jesus’ own was as critical as that of those he chose to transmit his message to subsequent generations. There is even a sense in which their role was greater than Jesus’ because if they failed it would have rendered Jesus’ life and death a waste. If Jesus got this wrong he is not the eternal Son of God but a fallible human who could neither foresee nor influence the future. This would make him unworthy to be followed as a spiritual leader, much less worshipped. In reality, Jesus always knew exactly what he was doing. He knew, for example, that Judas would betray him and that Peter and the other disciples would deny him but afterward be faithful. To zero in on the bare facts of Jesus’ teaching and shun Christian interpretation or bias, I will primarily cite the actual recorded words of Jesus and mostly side-step mentioning comments in the Gospels make by the authors. I will also largely avoid mentioning other significant early Christian writings (the rest of the Christian Bible). This voluntary restriction is despite the fact that besides the Gospels themselves, these are the writings of people who were more familiar with Jesus’ life and message than anyone else from whom we can gain information and the ones to whom Jesus entrusted the transmission of his message. For more see The Unique Value of the Apostle Paul's Writings to Understand Jesus Related Pages Spiritual Essentials for Accurate Bible Interpretation

A Biblical Examination of the Case for Reincarnation When his baby died, King David knew it would almost certainly be decades until his own death (and it turned out that it was). Nevertheless, he said of his dead baby, “I will go to him, but he will not return to me,” (2 Samuel 12:23). By this he was saying that over all that time, his deceased child would not return in any form to where the living dwell but would remain in the realm of the dead where David himself would eventually go when he died. Over and over, the Jewish Scriptures (known by Christians as the Old Testament) insist that the dead do not, in any form, return to the realm of the living, but remain indefinitely in the place of the dead. One of the most common Old Testament ways of referring to death is to sleep/rest with one’s fathers (i.e. one’s ancestors). In fact, this expression occurs about forty times. For example: Deuteronomy 31:16 And the LORD said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your fathers . . .” Jews were often buried in ancestral plots but “rest with your fathers” is clearly not an allusion to this practice because Moses died in the wilderness, not in Egypt where for centuries all his ancestors had lived and died, nor in the Promised Land, where his more distant ancestors, Abraham and Isaac were buried, nor in Ur, where their ancestors had lived and died. In fact, the Jewish practice of burying people with their ancestors might have been a symbol of their belief that people go to be with their ancestors when they die. To say that those who die rest with their forefathers means one can trace back many generations and none of their ancestors had been reincarnated but continued to exist in the realm of the dead. This expression is used regardless of whether those who died were godly (1 Kings 2:10, 1 Kings 22:50, 2 Kings 20:21) or ungodly (1 Kings 16:6, 1 Kings 16:28, 1 Kings 22:40, 2 Kings 15:22) Jesus himself referred to death as “sleep” (John 11:11-14), and the rest of the New Testament also uses it often. Acts 7:60  He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.   Acts 13:36  For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw decay.   1 Corinthians 11:30  For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.   1 Corinthians 15:6  Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep.   1 Corinthians 15:18  Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.   1 Corinthians 15:20  But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.   1 Corinthians 15:51  Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.   1 Thessalonians 4:13  But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.   1 Thessalonians 4:14  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.   1 Thessalonians 4:15  For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left to the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.   1 Thessalonians 5:10  who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.   Resting indefinitely with one’s forefathers, however, is not the end of the Scriptures’ story: there will come a time when those who sleep the sleep of death will be raised to life and then they will be judged and the result of that judgment will be eternal:   Daniel 12:2  Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.   Jesus named many people who, despite having died generations ago, were still able to interact with other dead people. For example:   Matthew 12:41-42  The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.   Luke 13:28  There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.   Luke 16:23-25  In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham . . . But Abraham replied . . .   By Jesus’ time, Abraham, the Queen of the South, and so on had been dead for centuries but according to him they still were the same individuals. If reincarnation occurs, these people would no longer be Abraham, the Queen of the South, and so on, but would have reincarnated into animals or become other people, possibly several times.   Over and over and over, Jesus’ teaching revealed that, after death, people maintain their individual identity, regardless of whether or not they have lived a godly life. They do not end up being a succession of different creatures and people nor, as some Indian religions teach, do they finally lose their individuality by merging into something much bigger, like a drop in an ocean. On the other hand, individuality does not mean isolation: heaven will be a place of deep and fulfilling and all-inclusive love. Nor does remaining the same person mean they will not undergo change. In fact, Jesus taught that after death people become so different to earthly people and animals that they become like angels, for whom marriage is meaningless and there is no sexual reproduction:   Matthew 22:30  At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.   Jesus revered the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament) as the source of spiritual truth (see  Jesus & the Jewish Bible ). Moreover, he kept stating over and over that dead people still exist as the persons they were when they died. Even though hundreds or thousands of years had passed they had not reincarnated.   The New Testament book of  Hebrews  says that in order for him to atone for the sins of the entire human race, Jesus had to become like humans in every way, except that he was sinless (Hebrews 2:17; 4:15). One aspect of him being like all other humans is that he would die just once. This book was written to Jewish Christians and the writer knew that dying just once (not over and over as would be the case if reincarnation occurred) is an elementary belief of those with a Jewish background.   Hebrews 9:25-28  Nor did he  [Jesus]  enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as  man   [every human]  is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment , so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people . . .  (Emphasis mine.)     For further confirmation, see Was John the Baptist Elijah Reincarnated?