Four Faith Fakers

Several times in this blog, I have told how runaway bride's self-doubt gobbled up her faith to where she could not walk out the plan that the Lord had given her. She fled from her promised land instead.

The lesson in today's post doesn't have much to do with the runaway bride, at least not directly. Today's post is about things that sometimes masquerade as faith or things that people sometimes substitute for faith. Only the Holy Spirit, who knows the heart, could tell how much of which one, if any, applies to whom and in what proportion. Nevertheless, a general discussion is useful because knowing these things can help you see when the devil either is trying to deceive you directly (self-deception), or is trying to lull you into a place of complacency so that others can easily deceive you.

1. Mental Assent (only quacks like a duck)
If you grew up in a church culture, you've probably heard of this one. It's a perennial topic taught in church youth groups to distinguish between superficial agreement and authentic conviction. Mental assent is believing with one's head and brain, but it lacks the immovable reality of knowing it in your gut. It can look like faith to someone who does not know you well because mental assenters tend to say a lot of good-sounding stuff.

2. Sense & Sight (only waddles like a duck)
Thomas, one of Jesus' disciples said he would not believe Jesus rose from the dead until he had the proof of seeing the nail hole and putting his finger into it. Looking at circumstances and the position of "doors" are in this category too. Not all open doors on your path of life are opened by the Lord. The devil opens many enticements to lead men astray. Some doors require the effort of using the doorknocker before God will open them. Just because a trail is difficult, it does not mean that God did not tell you to climb it.

3. Hope & Wishful Thinking (only feathered like a duck)
Mistaking or misusing hope for faith is usually either a sign of immaturity or, for a person who has been a believer a long time, a sign of a shallow area in his relationship with Christ. Wishful thinking has no substance. Hope protects a future goal and can keep one motivated while pursuing it, but the Here & Now of genuine faith reaches the inward parts of the spirit.

4. Unpersuadableness (obstinate as a duck)
"Unpersuadableness" might not be a real word, but it is pretty easy to figure out what it would mean if it was: a stubbornness that cannot be persuaded to change. Some people, too often as a result of inaccurate teaching, think that "having faith" means to take a stand no matter what. As long as you are taking a stand on a truth that God has placed in your submitted-to-Him heart, that definition of "having faith" will work wonderfully. If you are taking a stand on what you wanted for an outcome and are trying to get the Lord to sign on to your plan, then you are not standing in faith; you are standing in disobedience.

All of these fail the "swims like a duck" action-test for faith. None of these substitutes for faith will get you anywhere, and some can actually cause you to sink.

The Lesson
Mental assent does not please God.
Trusting your physical senses does not please God.
Wishing does not please God.
Stubbornness does not please God.
Without faith, it is impossible to please God.  Hebrews 11:6 

Grasshoppers and Katydids

my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
 ~ Hebrews 10:38

Time for a touch of word study. Who is a "righteous one?"
By checking the lexicon, we see the original Greek work is dikaios. The righteous one is a person who is upright, virtuous, keeping the commands of God, whose actions are conformed to the will of God, and therefore is acceptable of God.

Even secular history books sometimes cover the first phrase in Hebrews 10:38 because the idea that the just shall live by faith was so radically pivotal to Martin Luther. His epiphany of that one truth sparked the Protestant Reformation, which divided European governments and inspired colonization of North America.

But our runaway bride did not conform her actions to the plan that the Lord revealed to her on New Year's Day. She shrank back from it. The second phrase in the verse speaks to the act of shrinking back. Our Greek lexicon tells us the original word is hypostellō, which means to draw back, to withdraw one's self, to shrink from declaring. It is a non-action rooted in timidity. The consequence of this behavior is that God's soul has no pleasure in it.

It's pretty easy to find biblical accounts of people who displeased God. In each case, they were shrinking back and not believing what He said. One of the more dramatic examples plays out in the 13th and 14th chapter of the Book of Numbers when the spies spent 40 days checking out the land the Lord had given them. Forty days was all it took for then to start looking at the giants and begin feeling insecure.

God said, "I've given it to you. Go take it!"
They said, "The land devours its inhabitants; we are like grasshoppers." And that is essentially the same thing that Katie did. She saw herself as a grasshopper, she did. Have you seen a picture of a Katydid?
Yes, it is a lot like a grasshopper.

In just a few days, the same men who just two-and-a-half years earlier had seen deliverance from Egypt and personally crossed the Red Sea while the water stood aside, who had been sustained on manna, who saw the water purified at Marah, who felt the ground shake and witnessed the thunderings and lightnings on the Holy Mountain in Sinai, who accepted the Ten Commandments (on the second go-round), who participated in the building of the Tabernacle; these same men lost all confidence in what God had told them in less than forty days! They saw themselves as grasshoppers.  Their self-esteem as a servant of the Lord had plummeted. God's soul found no pleasure in their lack of faith. He essentially told them they could spend the next forty years pounding sand.

Faith without deeds is useless. "What use is it if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Is that faith able to save him?" asks James 2:14. Trusting the Lord's plan for one's life takes more than reading a book and talking about it. It is a work of the heart, the soul, and the body that exhibits a living faith. "Living Faith" will step up and act on what God says. It won't run and hide and pull the plug on all further communication.

It is bad enough for a person to shrink back on his or her own. It is worse when a second person actively encourages the the drawing back. But when shrinking away from God becomes the advice and consolation offered by an authority figure under the guise of loving concern and wisdom, that is the worst.

The evidence seems to point to KatieLyn having grasshopper syndrome. During the courtship, she would sometimes say things that indicated that she was seeing herself as small, powerless, and unworthy, as if finding Joe was almost too good to be true. I know some people will say things to belittle themselves on purpose just so that those around them will exclaim "No!" and make an appropriate contradictory remark of felicitation. But I never got the impression that KatieLyn was fishing for a compliment; she seemed to see herself as a grasshopper in some areas. 

Joe is of the opinion, and I am inclined to concur, that KatieLyn's mother manipulates KatieLyn's "grasshopper syndrome." That is, she does and says things that will undermine KatieLyn's self-confidence and then, once KatieLyn is second-guessing herself, the mother pulls back and rather gratuitously "lets KatieLyn make her own decisions." It is insidious. If KatieLyn ever regrets that decision later on, her mother will be right there to tell Katie that she did that all on her own, that was what Katie said she wanted.  That is what happened leading up to the flight of the runaway bride, and of course, the mother was there to support her in whatever "she" wanted, even support for running away from the Lord.   

The Lesson
Hebrews 10:38 — My righteous one will live by faith; and if he might shrink back, my soul does not take pleasure in him. In light of this truth, one cannot honestly argue that the Israelites were wise to shrink back from the land the Lord had given them. God was not oblivious to the giants' presence in thin land. The Israelites should have realized that God would not task them with the impossible. They could have taken the attitude, "We can do this! God gave it to us." God wanted the Israelites to step out as a show of faith, as an act of trust in the Lord. Their doubts did not bring them wisdom. Their doubts defeated them. KatieLyn's doubts defeated her too.

The Israelites were not defeated by the giants in the land; they were defeated by the grasshoppers in their minds. Shrinking back is the opposite is stepping out. Without faith, it is impossible to step out and walk the down the aisle to the Lord's chosen destiny.

Why It Wasn't 'The Right Thing'

This entry is on hold.

Sorry, this is like one of the Google book previews with pages missing.

I did write a list of reasons why I am convinced that KatieLyn missed God and did not do the "the right thing" by running off in the middle of the night. 

I am not posting at this time because the real-life "Joe" holds out a hope of speaking with her again as a couple i.e. no triangulation.  Publishing this post prematurely could be like poisoning the well. 

Maybe the timing will be better later. 
If you are incredibly curious, a couple of the reasons can be found in this teaching by Keith Moore: The Place of Rest, by K Moore, 2013

  ** ADDED on May 2nd, 2016 

See Paul's Problem with the Corinthians  posted on 2 May 2016.
THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS THAT I AM CONVINCED THAT CALLING OFF THE MARRIAGE WAS THE WRONG THING TO DO - THE REASON SHE USED FOR CALLING IT OFF WAS FLESHLY. 

  ** ADDED  on May 11th, 2016 

See In the World You Will Have Tribulation Posted on 11 May 2016
THIS IS ANOTHER ONE OF THE REASONS THAT I AM CONVINCED THAT CALLING OFF THE MARRIAGE WAS THE WRONG THING TO DO - THE REASON SHE USED FOR CALLING IT OFF WAS MISAPPROPRIATED. 

The Facebook Filosophy

Today's picture is one of those posters that gets liked, and shared, and generally passed around on Facebook. It is not incredibly deep, nor does it have a strong biblical worldview. But it is sweet, and it does do a nice job emphasizing how enduring love is grounded in unremarkable simplicity and looks out for the other person's well-being more than his/her own.

I have taken the liberty of underscoring today's lesson from the runaway bride in pink. Pink was to have been one of the wedding colors. Theirs is a wedding that should have been. KatieLyn missed God, and ever since then, she has shuttered herself up and refused to talk about it.

That is why this sentence, "fall in love with someone who makes you question why you were afraid to fall in love in the first place," is one that remains the Not My Story line for Joe.

KatieLyn did fall in love. And she was not afraid—at first. And later, when she did say that she was afraid that she could not make Joe happy long-term and that she was afraid that he would grow to resent her, the feeble reasons that she gave, (she enjoys coffee and books, while Joe likes the weekend cigar) simply do not add up.

Joe drinks coffee. He is literate. KatieLyn is not being asked to take up cigar smoking, and he'd give it up in a second if he didn't believe that there must be more to it. That part of the poster is Not Joe's Story because KatieLyn refuses to take questions.

The basic lesson here is that KatieLyn sucks at breaking up and calling off a wedding. Runaway brides, especially those who are running back to their former lifestyle, ought to avoid telling the groom that he deserves better. Trying to make the breakup sound as if she had to do it in the best interest of Joe is all bunk since her actions say either (a) he deserves to be run from, or (b) she found it more important to run back to mommy.

Telling the groom whom you are ex-ing that he deserves better is an insult because he believes that you are wonderfully and perfectly suited for him just the way you are.  He believes the Lord brought you together, which makes you the best he deserves.

A proper rejection should be more about KatieLyn. She should fess up and say she's happier without him, that she does not miss him at all, that she is having a smashing time as a single, that between teaching the kids at church/daycare and sharing a cup of coffee with a co-worker she never gets lonely, that she is comfortable with her decision to ask God for the security of what is behind Curtain B instead of walking out His original direction to her in faith, that living with her parents and cleaning for her mother is fulfilling her life-long dream, that she is content in her codependency, and that she doesn't regret leaving him. That she never, ever had a doubt, and that her mommy has promised she can get a cat.

Agabus the Prophet

Once, when the Apostle Paul was staying with Phillip in Caesarea, Agabus the prophet came down from Judea to give him the word of the Lord. The full story is found in Acts 21 and takes most of the chapter, especially verses 8 through 30. I won't quote the entire story here, but if you want to see it in context, that is where you can find it.

Agabus took Paul's belt, bound his own (Agabus's) feet and hands, and delivered his message from the Holy Spirit: In this way, the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

This was no big shock for Paul. If you back up to chapter 20, you will see that he had said tearful goodbyes when he left Ephesus, even before he sailed for Philip's house. Everyone there understood that the next time they saw Paul, they'd have all crossed over into glory. But long before that, even from the first days of Paul's ministry, he understood that this day of being bound up and taken into custody was coming. The Spirit of God, through visions, prophetic words, and his inward witness had shown him how much he would suffer for the sake of the name of the Lord. cf Acts 9:16.

Nonetheless, the other believers and local residents of Caesarea found Agabus's prophecy distressing. You could say that they had 'misgivings' and 'concerns.' They begged Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. They were wildly out of line. Their objections and misgivings were the result of looking on with worldly eyes, and they made life a lot harder for Paul than it should have been. Paul had known going in that there would be suffering, but now he was getting grief from believers who loved him! 

In short order, (see Acts 21:13,) Paul had to correct them, "What are you doing? Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?"
Personally, I don't think 'heartbroken' was his first reaction. The heartbroken part probably came after he saw how deep and widespread their begging him not to go was. And the heartbroken part wasn't because he knew he had a tough time ahead; his heart was broken because so many people were trying to interfere and stop the will of God.

It is easy to see that Paul was prepared for the next and final season of his life because he said, "I am ready to not only be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." He was, as they say, "All in." He could not be persuaded to jump off the path that God had chosen for him.

The prophecy was fulfilled and he was captured and bound when he went to Jerusalem for Passover, but he did not die there in Jerusalem. He would go on to give his defense before the people there, Acts 21:40; before the council, Acts 22:30; before Felix, Acts 24; eventually before his successor, Porcius Festus, who heard his appeal to Caesar and sent him to Agrippa, Acts 25; before Agrippa, Acts 26; before the sailors and the islanders of Malta when he was shipwrecked during his transfer to Rome, Acts 27; and when he did reach Rome, during the two years that he was under house arrest there, he wrote letters that comprise a major chunk of the New Testament, witnessing to millions across the centuries, even billions over two millennia.

The Lesson
What does this have to do with the Runaway bride? Well, what if those who had reservations, uncertainties, and 'issues' had been able to persuade Paul and derail him from pursuing God's plan for his life? What if they had been able to convince him that he should "do the right thing" and take
Agabus's accurate prophecy as a sign that he should not go to Jerusalem? Think about it. 

This is what happened to KatieLyn, the runaway bride. Instead of trusting what the Lord had shown her and walking out His plan for her life by faith, she listened to 'the arguments of the people who loved her in Caesarea' and was persuaded to call it quits. But the people were wrong. They loved Paul and wanted only the best for him, but they were wrong. Fortunately, Paul could not be swayed by the people's misgivings. Acts 21:14 says, "And since he could not be persuaded, we fell silent, remarking, 'The will of the Lord be done.'" 

Joe had trusted KatieLyn to be more like Paul. At least in Paul's experience, when he told them that he was ready to fulfill God's plan, the people shut up and decided to let the will of the Lord be done.

♦  ♦  ♦

The difference here is that Paul did not suffer any crippling issues with codependency. He was not at the mercy of the opinion of others, nor was he willing to be victimized by the words of even such well-respected authority figures as Philip the Evangelist or Agabus the Prophet. Paul knew who he was, he knew the Lord's will for his life, and he could not be persuaded otherwise.

A Highly Biased Analysis

Someday soon I will post about how VILE and EVIL it is to commandeer control over communications as was done to Joe and his friends. But for today, I want to leave KatieLyn's mother out of it. So for today, I am going to look at the things Joe's family and friends had thought were RIGHT.

• KatieLyn had inspired Joe to be his best. By knowing her, he'd become more focused in what he wanted out of life; he was making more conservative, less self-centered, financial decisions; and he was taking better care of himself.

• KatieLyn was a woman who allowed Joe to be authentic; the changes he was making were positive, but still in line with his core character. He wasn't suddenly faking an aberrant interest in needlepoint or abandon his working on clunkers hobby just to please her.

• Trust had come easily with KatieLyn; yes, that is past tense now. Joe could say without any shred of doubt that he would never purposely hurt her, and he'd once thought that she would never purposefully hurt him.

• They had fun together, at least Joe had fun. He loved it that KatieLyn seemed to enjoy things like playing card games with friends or cooking steaks on the grill. He knew his lifestyle would never fit with a woman who would expect him to blow half a paycheck on a night on the town every few weeks, but KatieLyn had seemed to be the picnic-in-the-park kind of girl that he could live with forever.

• KatieLyn's worldview and value system is similar to Joe's. Their approach to the big issues of religion, education, and work ethic is very compatible. And even though KatieLyn had racked up some debts, and Joe believes in living debt-free, they had discussed this and she had appeared to be okay with a more "Dave Ramsey" style attitude. 

• KatieLyn matched every "non-negotiable point" on his list for a wife flawlessly (this was the eHarmony list from the service that found the match), and she matched all but one his "wanted" points.¹

• KatieLyn gave every indication of someday being a loving, nurturing mother for any children they may have. This was very important to Joe. KatieLyn loves children and has a knack for helping them discover the world around them.

• This point is a bit surprising for people who tend to judge things by projecting their own feelings into a situation, but Joe's love for KatieLyn is nearly unconditional. He has never been fuming livid at her for running home to her mother. He was deeply hurt that she chose life with her mother over him, of course, but he did not react with anger. His prayer from the beginning was that she would see the truth of that codependency and would find the courage to want to break free of it.²

• Joe's friends and family believed that KatieLyn's strengths complemented Joe's personality. Where he tended to be laid back, she could pull out his interest without becoming neurotic over it—at least it certainly seemed to be the case. We may have been wrong about this.³

• They did not consume each other; KatieLyn was still her own person. This wasn't a puppy-love situation where common sense and reality fly out the door. KatieLyn was saying and doing the things that gave us confidence that she was the right person for Joe. She kept her own sense of humor and injected her own ideas into the mix.

• KatieLyn is a life-long learner, like Joe.  It would have been no stretch to imagine her earning a college degree in early childhood education and building a career in that direction if she had wanted to. She had the natural curiosity that keeps a mind active and growing, and with the proper encouragement, could have been a good writer of children's books. 


• KatieLyn made it easy to imagine what was next. We could look down the years and see it working out. We could envision their love growing stronger. It was easy to picture KatieLyn finding her place in life here, to see her blossoming into a wonderful woman of God, and flourishing as she walked out the Lord's plan for her life.

• KatieLyn was wanted here. We had welcomed her with a bridal shower. Women who had never met her before had spent time and resources to make her feel welcomed, and when they did meet her, they unanimously agreed that "Joe had done well to find a catch" like her. Expressions like, "They're so cute together," were wholly sincere, not idle prattle. No one realized that such acceptance could be twisted into KatieLyn later saying that she wasn't good enough. Nobody who met her then would ever have agreed with what she said on the night that she ran, that she was not capable of making Joe happy. 

The Lesson?
Is there a lesson in all this?  There are many conclusions that could be drawn, some directly opposing each other depending upon whom you think "did the right thing."  Today, KatieLyn still believes that she did the right thing by running away. I believe that she ran away from God's plan for her life.


¹The one point that did not match was that she was still living with her parents.
²At the time Joe met KatieLyn, she was telling him that she wanted this. She told him that she did not want the same things her mother wanted for her. She did not want to marry the kind of man her mother likes, that is, someone like her father. She was afraid that her mother would never like KatieLyn to date a man that wasn't like her father. KatieLyn's early assessment proved to be 100% spot on.
³According to KatieLyn's mom, KatieLyn was hiding a lot of her anxiety. And there was at least one case where she hid her real thoughts. It had to do with a can of Parmesan cheese. These jars are labeled "refrigerate after opening." The reason for this has more to do with clumping and flavor than with spoilage. Italian restaurants and pizzerias often have unrefrigerated shakers of cheese on the table and the health department is fine with this. Joe likes to store his Parmesan at room temperature because it continues aging and is better when making sauces. He explained this to KatieLyn, and she gave the appearance of being all understanding. But once he was out the door, she whisked it back into the refrigerator. It's the "pretend to agree" and then "do differently as soon as Joe is out of sight" that is troubling.

Triangulation

In my last post, I promised that I would pick up again on the topic of triangulation in a codependent relationship. First, a review of what is meant by codependent—

The "nicest" (meaning mildest) definition comes from Scott Wetzler, PhD, on WebMD, "Codependent relationships signify a degree of unhealthy clinginess, where one person doesn't have self-sufficiency or autonomy." On the same page, Shawn Burn, PhD, explains further, "These (people whose parents emotionally abused or neglected them) are often taught to subvert their own needs to please a difficult parent, and it sets them up for a long-standing pattern of trying to get love and care from a difficult person."

Wikipedia gives this definition: Codependent relationships are a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency, the most common theme is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and identity.

I am positing that KatieLyn and her mother have a codependent relationship. You may read some things on this blog that would make you question— isn't this more a case of dependency (strong mother/passive child) than codependency? To which I decided, no, because KatieLyn would sometimes be more assertive and fight with her mom. Of course, her mother used these fights as "proof" that there was something wrong about her relationship with Joe, so that was a bit of a catch-22. At any rate, the triangulation that reared its head after the bride ran back home is typical of codependency.

During the courtship, I was aware that KatieLyn had a close relationship with her mother. There is nothing wrong with a close relationship with your mom, and there are actually many positive things about being close. I did not realize that she was hiding how dysfunctional their mother/daughter relationship actually was, however. The first time that I heard from her family after she ran off, her mother was giving the directives. Here is the quote:

I have told Katie to block your emails.  Any further communication that needs to happen will happen through me.  I have already told Joe this. (email #1)

The next and final time that I heard from her, there was this:

Katie has blocked the communication.  I did not make her.  She wants me and her father to be the go between.  She feels there is nothing more to say. (email #2)

It is pretty easy to see that the imperial attitude of the first email is different than the "it's her idea" blame-assignment of the second one, but in both, the mother was relishing her role of go-between.  Mental health counselors call this triangulation, a situation in which one person interacts with another person via an intermediary third person. There is a handful of times where triangulation is helpful: if a competent therapist is the third person, if a rational negotiator is the third party, if there is such a thing as a diplomatic lawyer... More often, the third person will hold a strong bias, and the triangulation prevents conflicts from being resolved.

KatieLyn's mother is the apex of biased. Obviously, we could not play into a situation that hands her the role of Chief Vertex and allows her to filter all communication.

This demand to put herself in the middle of a couple's relationship was my first real look at how dysfunctional KatieLyn's mother and their own relationship of codependency are. Not only was she keeping Joe in the complete dark about what KatieLyn was thinking, the mother was also making sure that KatieLyn would never know that Joe wanted to fight for the relationship because he still believed that marriage was God's will for them.

If you are asking where the dad was in all this, I'd like to know too! Child psychoanalyst Dr. Selma Kramer has written that in an emotionally healthy family, it is the father's role to be a positive supporting force for the child against the threat of having the child's personality influenced too lopsidedly by the mother. (That seems like a common sense argument for preferring that children be raised by heterosexual parents, doesn't it?)

Even though weeks have passed between the first email and the time I am writing this, I still find myself stunned by the demand for control. What kind of nutcase mother would want to deliberately throw herself into the middle of her adult daughter's God-ordained provision and answer to prayer in order to control it and break it up?

And as troubling as that is, there is one thing still more disturbing: Why was her mother so confident that KatieLyn would listen to her?

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

So far, this post has centered on what modern psychological theory says about triangulation.  The purpose of this blog, however, is to leave you with a lesson based on a how a real-life experience relates to a biblical precept. So, here goes:

The control of information and the shutting off of free communication is not what Jesus would have done. The only time that taking this action is supported in the scriptures is when a person has been a repeat offender of causing division among the brethren. If anyone was causing division, it was KatieLyn's mom, not Joe.

There is a touch of irony here. If KatieLyn's mother had not jumped in to take over something for KatieLyn that she was fully capable of doing on her own, then Joe would have accepted that KatieLyn wanted to rebel against the Lord's plan for their lives. He would not have liked it much; but he would have respected her decision. But now, no one believes that KatieLyn was acting on her own.

The situation is clearly untenable.

WebMD link to definitions
Wikipedia's source: Johnson, R. Skip (13 July 2014). "Codependency and Codependent Relationships". BPDFamily.com. Retrieved for Wikipedia 9 September 2014.
Reference to work of S. Kramer

Idolatry + Codependency = Disaster

In my last post, I told how through prayer I had perceived that idolatry had played a role in the bride running home to mother. I also mentioned that Joe, the groom, had come to this conclusion independently. Today, I will fill in some details on his point of view.

•==•==•==•==•

Early in the relationship, at a time when the prospect of marriage was "out there" but had not yet been seriously discussed, KatieLyn told Joe that she believed that if her mother had it her way, she (the mom) would want KatieLyn to live in her parents' house forever because she (KatieLyn) was so helpful around the house and the church.
The mother had a part-time job cleaning classrooms at their church; KatieLyn would often help her mother on Wednesday nights, but the mom kept all the paycheck. KatieLyn claimed that she was mostly okay with that because while she was employed full time, the cleaning job was the only personal income her mom had, that helping out gave them an opportunity to spend time together without outside distractions, and that it gave her mom more time to spend at home.  She led Joe to believe that she realized that her mother was a manipulator who took advantage of her, but that she was ready to break free.

In their further discussions, for Joe was certainly interested in what kind of in-laws he may have to deal with, it came out that KatieLyn has always felt that in her mother's eyes, she was second-place to her older sister. KatieLyn was always working to get her mom's approval, which Joe decided was the real reason that KatieLyn was so willing to help out her mom and ask for nothing in return. He also believed that once they were married, the four-hour distance between KatieLyn's new home and her mother, coupled with KatieLyn gaining self-confidence as she switched from the role of daughter to wife, would go a long way to resolving, not all, but much of that problem.

(And even though this post is primarily about Joe's viewpoint, I will add here that when I met KatieLyn's parents, within the the first hour of discussion, her mother compared her to her older sister, whom I had not met and who was not present, by saying that the sister had always been more popular. So yes, KatieLyn was not just imagining that. It was her life experience.)

Then, when KatieLyn ran back home, Joe looked at those facts again. Where he once saw a manipulator and a daughter ready to break free, he now saw an enabling mother and a codependent adult-child. In any case, KatieLyn was not able to break free. She did not run to a friend or get her own apartment. She ran back to her mother and now her mother is a gatekeeper for her. (More on that in a future post.)

Joe, as part of his reading research to become a husband, had come across information on Quiver Full Families. The quiver full movement, in case you are not familiar with it, gets its name from Psalm 127:3-5

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

'Sounds nice, right? The movement has a lot of positive, down-to-earth things going for it; it's pro-life, naturally, and it generally clusters around conservative hearth & home values such as organic gardening, homesteading, self-reliance, home education, etc. But much of what got started as an anti-feminist push-back effort quickly crossed the road and ran into a ditch of patriarchal fundamentalism.

It seems somewhat ironic that Joe found the best explanation for KatieLyn's poor self-image on a website meant to expose the patriarchal excesses of quiver full families until you understand that in KatieLyn's family, the mother was/is the de facto patriarch.

Joe found that codependent people are usually preoccupied with the opinions of others. (If that holds true for KatieLyn's mother, she is in deep do-doo because after the way she has tried to control our family since her daughter ran back home, my opinion of her has plummeted.) Joe believes these definitions of the codependent fit KatieLyn: The codependent develops intense feelings and will try anything to make the family or relationship survive.¹ And: They therefore are willing to do most anything just to keep peace.¹  He believes this quality of an enabler fits her mother: By enabling, they are allowing the behavior to continue and cause avoidance of natural consequences.¹

A couple hours of cleaning each week to keep your mom happy is one thing, but giving up a relationship and marriage to a man you are in love with and who loves you deeply in return—just to keep peace with your mother?  She had not only made an idol out of her mother, she had entered the nunnery for her!  This was unexpected and remains deeply disturbing. 

To his chagrin, Joe learned that the typical pattern in codependency is for one person to be willing to take the blame, while the other person looks for others to blame for their actions. We did not have all this stuff going on in our family; it is not our story, so it seems really odd to me that any mother wouldn't want her child to grow up and become a successful adult in her own right. Yet KatieLyn's mother would subtly harry and pressure her own daughter into thinking that she would be a failure. And KatieLyn was buying into it! KatieLyn seemed fully willing to take the blame for "putting her priorities in the wrong place" and her mother crowed about how she "knew there was something wrong with KatieLyn" all along. 

Joe had not been completely blind to KatieLyn's low self-image. He knew she had a hard time accepting what he considered well-earned compliments. She would not trust that the compliments were sincere, but wondered if they were meant to manipulate her. He was surprised by how often she seemed to think that she was not quite good enough or deserving. He knew she would sometimes "self-medicate" her low self-worth with a compulsion to help others and so feel better about herself. But everyone has a few issues, and he thought that even if he wasn't able to change her in this regard, at least it was unlikely to grow worse once she had some space away from the pigeonhole where her family kept her.

What did shock him, however, was something he read about "triangulation in a codependent relationship." And that will be the next topic in this blog.

¹ Quivering Daughters of Patriarchy — Codependency

Idolatry

During a time of prayer very early on, (meaning a few days after KatieLyn, the runaway bride, bolted into the night,) I received the insight that KatieLyn had made an idol of her mother. Now, months later when I go back over the notes of my prayer journal, I see that I couched this thought with the phrase "is likely." The truth is, in the first few days after she ran, I wasn't fully ready to accept that truth! I was still trying to think the best of everyone, and I certainly did not want to accuse KatieLyn of idolatry.

Within a fortnight, (I don't have opportunity to use that word often, so I will seize the chance here!) and through a different route, God had revealed the same idolatry to Joe. Joe brought up the subject of her idolatry first in our conversations, and by the time that he did, I had seen more of the pieces fit together.

Here is the nutshell version:

Anything that places 'other gods' before the Living Creator is idolatry—Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.  Yet by her actions, KatieLyn had honored her mother's desires before she honored God's desires.

That is one of the reasons that both Joe and I were incredulous when KatieLyn would later try to explain the break-up by saying that she had "put my relationship with Joe ahead of my relationship with God, and that was my biggest mistake." Another reason that Joe was unconvinced that her account of her "biggest mistake" was valid was that they had covered this very point of putting God first during times of Bible study and had also touched on it during premarital counseling. (The August 10 post, "Faith works by love," discusses this more fully and asks, "(a) What is so wrong with placing a high value on a relationship God gave you as an answer to years of prayer, and (b) why is that a problem that cannot be fixed by anything short of dissolving the God-given relationship and running away?")

More than mere Humble Opinion, and supportable by observing her actions, KatieLyn put a third relationship before both her relationship with her God and her relationship with her fiancé. The relationship that she made into an idol was her relationship with her mother.

At the surface, that sounds like a horrible, mean, spiteful thing to say, right? And KatieLyn's explanation about mistakenly putting Joe ahead of God sounds so principled, upright, and noble. But the underlying facts are so ugly that my progression to acceptance of that idea was an evolution of substantial reluctance.

From even before the engagement period, KatieLyn's mother had "jokingly" commented that Joe was "taking Katie away" from her. At first, I wrote-off her joke as an unfortunately blunt comment, easily forgivable because she was probably experiencing normal empty-nest syndrome. I now believe it goes much deeper. I considered the possibility that KatieLyn's mother was both afraid and jealous that KatieLyn might love someone else more than she loves her own mother. That might explain the mom's actions, but it does not explain KatieLyn's. After all, KatieLyn did not flee to a friend's house to get away from Joe; she fled back home to be with her mother.

About three weeks after what should have been their wedding day, I finally accepted a reason for KatieLyn's calling off the wedding that made sense—she is so submitted to her parents, her mother in particular, that she is unable to be wholly submitted to the Lord. She looked to her mother for instruction and guidance more than she looked to the leading of the Spirit of God. Her heart is divided and incapable of committing to marriage. She could not accept the Lord's plan for her life because she has unhealthy soul ties to her mother. This is idolatry.

♦ ○ ♦ ○ ♦

Ideally, parents would be in tune with the Lord's plan for their child.  That did not happen for KatieLyn. Her mom was all over the place, giving mixed signals, projecting her own fears, and  attempting to rationalize her feelings in a way that would make the mom look like "a good person." (I may cover some examples in future posts, but they are a bit like plots for a sit-com episode, and I don't want to treat idolatry as a joking matter in this post.)

The Lesson
Today's lesson from a runaway bride is that an idol is the thing you run to in place of God. Framing the running "away" as escaping a bad thing is disingenuous. The bride was running back "toward" her idols for a promise of safety from the unknown. She preferred what her idol was offering over what God had for her.

Grievances

KatieLyn's mother told me that she grieves deeply for our family.
She said it more than once.
There is so much wrong-headed thinking in that position that I scarcely know where to begin to comment.  I guess I will start with The Folly and work toward The Dangerous, although the astute reader will recognize that since folly so often creates dangerous conditions, the two are entangled.

First, I don't really believe her. That is, I don't believe her if I use my definition of grief, which is: an anguish so deep that it gives a temporary high (sweet sorrow), but if indulged in, ultimately brings destruction. However, I can believe her if I imagine what her definition of grief must be, which is: Feeling a sobering awkwardness because Katie must have really hurt Joe.  But the mother's discomfort did not rise to such a level that she didn't ask Joe to go get her refund for the flowers, and when he had to make extra trips and stand in line at the service counter during the time that he should have been enjoying his wedding reception, she could still feel appropriate regret—as long as she got her money back.

Secondly, I am disgusted at her hypocrisy. Who "grieves" a loss when she intentionally, over a course of months, behaved in a manner to promote the break-up? I think she was more relieved than grieved. And based on other comments, it's likely that she was dancing inside because, oh, don't you know, her adult relationship with her daughter had become one of "best friends." And now she wouldn't be losing her "best friend." (The quotation marks are used because, as Joe discovered, it is actually a co-dependency, not a friendship.)

Thirdly, one cannot grieve for something he/she never loved. Without love, there is no grieving; it's just a feeling of regret and perhaps a pang of sadness. 

Fourthly, who is it helping? What good cause does the grief serve? It certainly does not help Joe, his friends, or his family! Feeling bad probably allows KatieLyn's mom to look better in her own eyes. But isn't feeling bad to feel better about oneself a bit nuts? I'm not a psychologist, but that insight alone ought to be worth several billable hours. If she really is grieving for me, then she has also entered into self-deception, and deception comes from the enemy, not from God. True grief would have to be extended toward God for destroying His works in Joe's and KatieLyn's lives. That sort of grief could be good if it led to her repentance.

And the BIG reason that I am peeved at her is that grief is an entry portal for demonic activity. Spirit-beings of grief work to steal, kill, and destroy; they fulfill the devil's mission statement at the individual case level. What these evil spirits steal is the joy of the Lord. And of course, the joy of the Lord is our strength. What they kill is hope. Yet "against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became..." (Romans 8:24) KatieLyn never became the bride she was meant to be, in part because her mother indulged in hope-killing practices. What the demons work to destroy is faith, and faith is confidence.

If KatieLyn's mother knew what she was actually doing, if she really understood this, then her declaration of grief would be a form of witchcraft because she sought out a source other than God. I don't think she understands what a deadly game she is involved with though. I have been given the impression that she grew up as an agnostic, received Catholic training for a bit, and chose to attend a Baptist church now because it offered a better social life... whatever, she is dismissive of the reality of a spiritual world.

I, on the other hand, have seen too much evidence that there has been a long war against God, and that the enemy has no respect for women and children—no respect for any of mankind because we are created in the image of God. There is a real devil out there who absolutely hates God uniting a man and a woman in marriage, especially if there is a chance that they will raise up children who revere the Lord.

 ♥ And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:9 
I will not be grieved. Joe will not be grieved. If KatieLyn's mother wants to play around at grief, then she does so at her own peril. I am not going to tell her what to do. She has tried to tell me what to do and I don't think much of it. 
I will not accept her offering of grief because the enemy would use it against me. The grief expressed by KatieLyn's mother is not a godly sorrow. It is not a godly sorrow because the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance, and she is not repenting for troubling KatieLyn with fear. She is not repenting for opposing God's plan for our children's lives.
 ♥ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:10.
  Godly sorrow produces a repentance leading to salvation or restoration. The grief of KatieLyn's mother is worldly grief, and she is trying to use it to produce death. She is trying to get Joe and his family to accept the death of a relationship; a relationship in which she was an accomplice to murder. Her claim to grief does not make me view her as being charitable and gracious. It makes me view her as an enemy. 

The Lesson
Today's lesson from a runaway bride is that grief is a spiritual force. Grief usually comes after an enemy attack, (stealing, killing destroying, etc.) has already happened. It is the "two" in a one-two punch. Worldly grief is like a fertilizer that will bring further destruction and death. Worldly grief must be resisted and told to leave. 

Seven Spirits of Fear

Today's lesson will be a two-fer. There are two sides to the coin of fear. Heads: Acting on fear can restrict God from moving in your life. Tails: Acting on fear gives the enemy a right to manifest in your life.

KatieLyn acted on fear. Face it; no matter how many ways her family and friends try to spin it as being "courageous" to call off a wedding, running away is an act of fear. Running away in the middle of the night is an act of great fear. It would have been courageous to work things out. She did not even try. If working things out had proven impossible, a person of courage would be able to explain her position. She cannot.

Today's lesson is based on a sermon I once heard titled, "The Seven Spirits of Fear." I am not going to try to connect all seven to KatieLyn in this post; any reader of this blog will be able to see that some apply more than others, and all apply at least a little.

Heads: Acting on fear can restrict God from moving in your life.
It simply isn't true that God does whatever He wants. For example, a lot of people reject His gift of salvation. That is not what He wants, but to force it would deprive a person of his autonomy and freedom to choose. When you don't do what God wants you to do, in this example to accept salvation, or in KatieLyn's case to marry Joe, there is only so much that God can do about it. You have restricted Him with your choice. You cannot claim that "God didn't want me to get saved or He would have saved me no-matter-what" any more than KatieLyn can claim that if God had wanted her to marry Joe it would have happened no-matter-what.

Tails: Acting on fear gives the enemy a right to manifest in your life.
It is true that the enemy feeds on fear. Fear is not only the antithesis of faith, it also steals, kills, and destroys faith. That is who the enemy is: a a thief, a murderer, and a destroyer. Revelation 21:8 states that the cowardly and unbelieving end up in the lake of burning sulfur, so acting on fear is very serious stuff. Hebrew 10:38 says that we are to live by faith, and that God has no pleasure in those who draw back.


Here are the Seven Spirits of Fear— 

Fear of Change

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1 It is not good to want to stay in the same season, although God does not change, He changes times and seasons, Daniel 2:21, and He does not want His children to regress but rather to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call. Philippians 3:14. 

Fear of People

And don't be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. Jeremiah 1:8 This is one of the most disappointing of KatieLyn's fears, not because she was afraid of people, that is somewhat understandable, but because of the way she chose to not deal with it—she cloistered herself with a total information shutdown. Worse, her family mollycoddled her and allowed it.

Fear of the Unknown

We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey. However… the land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants. Numbers 13: 27, 32. The people obeyed the wrong source of information, making decisions on what they saw could go wrong instead of on what God had told them. Their fear of the unknown kept them from receiving God's promises.

Fear of Responsibilities

The Parable of the Talents, ending with Matthew 25:30, Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness.  Fear of and failure to live up to his responsibilities caused the man to forfeit even what small blessing that he had.

Fear of Failure

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than having acknowledged it, to turn back. 2 Peter 2:21 The fear of failure comes from listening to voices other than God's.

Fear of Added Work

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58  Running off into the night isn't exactly steadfast and immovable.

Fear of Things Falling Apart
For what I fear comes upon me, And what I dread befalls me. Job 3:25 In Job's case, God had given Satan permission to test Job, and Satan chose to afflict Job with the things that Job feared. Temptations, tests, and trials that believers encounter today are often chosen the the same way: it is the fear that you fear that comes to pass.
Every "reason" that KatieLyn has given is actually a fear that had not come to pass. She did not even make it to the testing stage like Job.  Running away because of a fear that things might fall apart was not the right thing to do.  

The Lesson
God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind; 2 Timothy 1:7.
God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, 1 Corinthians 14:33
Fear and confusion do not come from God. If KatieLyn was experiencing fear and doubt, then she either made them for herself or she took those thoughts from the devil. By choosing to doubt God, we restrict Him from working in our behalf.   When fear attacks our minds we must make a choice: we can identify it as a thought from hell and reject it, or we can act on that thought and allow the enemy access to our life.