Easter is All About the Future

This—the trust, the faith, the heartfelt assurance, the confident expectancy—is what it takes to get thought the Garden of Gethsemane moments. It is where KatieLyn stumbled and froze.

This is Holy Week, sometimes called Passion Week, on the Christian Church calendar. Holy Week began on Palm Sunday, which commemorates the Triumphal Entry, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a never-ridden donkey. During the early part of the week, Jesus cursed a fig tree, overturned the table of the money changers in the Temple, and went to the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem, where he shared some final parables and teaching with his disciples. In the middle of the week He celebrated the Passover feast with His disciples, and afterwards went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. It was here that he fought the fight of faith; Luke describes his sweat becoming like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

In many real ways, it was here in the garden that Jesus won his battle. That is where the heart and mind submitted to God.  Thank God He did not run away in the middle of the night like KatieLyn! Jesus trusted the future of all mankind to the Father He knew.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1, 2.

For the Joy set before Him
Jesus saw a bigger picture with the eyes of his heart than could be seen in the natural. He saw joy in the future. He did not let Satan rob Him of that. Jesus did not listen to advice from Peter. He did not consider how brutal and ugly crucifixion was. He talked to His Father.


The Lesson
KatieLyn wasn't able to take that step of faith. Her family wasn't looking at her future with spiritual eyes either, and therefore the so-called support that her family gave her was actually negative and encouraged her to play it safe instead of to trust God. (I am not sure if she ever talked to her father.)
Her Heavenly Father had made provision for a thrilling and fulfilling future, but she flunked her Garden of Gethsemane test. 

It's a Man's World

Real men affirm reality.  ~ Ilana Mercer 

That was said within the context of a political discussion where a candidate was being pressured to apologize for telling the truth because some found it 'offensive.'  Mercer describes herself as 'paleolibertarian.' And because she supports good character in the marketplace, she isn't affiliated with any political party.  Mercer believes that a man of character would not apologize for calling someone else out on her lie, but rather that real men affirm reality.

What does this have to do with the Runaway Bride?  If I choose to believe that KatieLyn was telling the truth when she said that she wanted to marry a "real man," then it has quite a lot to do with her reactions.  After she ran back home in the middle of the night, she became all sorts of offended.

KatieLyn's 'normal' environment is that of a feminized world. She had lots of sisters, and her only brother was half a generation younger.  She would babysit him, so in some respects, the family dynamics worked out that she was part mother-figure to him. She is employed as a preschool teacher and does not interact with any males over the age of three. Her father is a passive male who lets his wife run the family. KatieLyn herself commented on the culture shock of Joe's "masculine" world.

Personally, I think Joe's world is well balanced in that regard. He interacts with both genders regularly. I can see that by contrast, it would seem very male-oriented to KatieLyn, but that is only because she is so far from being centered herself. I believe that part of the reason God was putting her together with Joe was so that she could grow into a healthier balance that was more couples-oriented. His friends had embraced her as their friends, she was accepted as she was, and many opportunities were at the brink of opening before her.

Her flight home in the middle of the night sent her back into the feminized world. The advice she received next was the typically emotional response of an ultra-female perspective that had very little to do with affirming the reality of what she had done. She had fled from God's plan for her life.

She had fled from God's plan for her life, and in her all-girl world no one would assert the truth of that. Instead, her friends and family were there to cloister her away so that she would never have to confront the fact that she was scared and shrank back from God's will for her life. She allowed the clattering cares of this world to drown out God's soft quiet voice.

Ecclesiastes 4:10 says, "... woe to the one who falls and there is not a second to raise him up!"  KatieLyn had many to help her up; but none of them had heard from the Lord. They were raising her up using worldly ideas that are unfit for godly counsel. She did not have a "second" who was allowed to confront her with the truth or affirm reality to her. She fled back to the safe bondage of her totally female world. She became more like her mother than ever because that is the person she turned to to protect her from the reality.

If she had turned to the Lord instead of her mother, if she had been able to trust the Holy Spirit for comfort instead of friends who'd never met Joe, if her father had said a good word in season, if..., if..,. if...

KatieLyn's dad has all but abdicated his "father" position. His willingness to delegate his man's role of fathering  to her mother has left KatieLyn adrift, making one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She is still totally blind to that because of the triangulation (discussed earlier in this blog) that filtered all her information. KatieLyn got blasted off God's path for her life because there were NO MEN other than Joe sticking up for her; and the women in her life had sown so much doubt about Joe that KatieLyn became confused.

The Lesson
There is not much else to say here except to point out the correlation with the events in the Garden of Eden. Ever notice how in Romans 5:15, 5:16, and 5:17, "one man's offense" is repeated three times? Eve was the one who had the emotional response to the serpent, but it was one man who God held responsible for deaths entry into the world.
KatieLyn was living at home, supposedly under her father's protection. She was in the same house with him, yet she was abandoned by him. She had a father, but no father figure to rely on.

God's Designs in 'Six Degrees of Separation'

We have talked a lot about the co-dependency between KatieLyn, the runaway bride, and Gwen, mother of the runaway.

It was God's desire to restructure this mother/daughter relationship and bring both women up to new levels where they would be more effective witnesses in His kingdom. He wanted KatieLyn to blossom into her own womanhood and be the queen of her own household instead of being a servant in her mother's house. He wanted Gwen to learn to release her children without driving them into rebellion (as happened to KatieLyn's older sister, but Katie caved instead.  There are younger children in the family, and so I am sure Gwen will have more "opportunities" to learn her lesson.)

I have listed Six Degrees of Separation, and all of them apply to some extent. There is no real hard and fast order for them, but roughly I have blended two criteria in putting an order to them: (a) sort of the order that Abraham learned about separation, (b) sort of by relational viewpoint—from faith in oneself to faith affecting others, and finally one's faith in God.   As you read though them, you will discover that there is some overlap; life does not proceed on a straight line. But generally, a year ago things were arranged where God could help KatieLyn conquer the lower numbers and enable Gwen to build her faith for the higher numbered ones, but they both decided to reject that.

1. Familiarity
This degree of separation shows up at the beginning of Abraham's call. Research it in Genesis 12. We have also discussed this earlier in the bog under the term Makom, the Place that God has for you. God separates us from a place that is familiar to us in order to separate us from the world and open our spiritual eyes afresh. God was calling KatieLyn to a fresh start that would help he blossom into her full potential, but she choose to cling to what was familiar.

2. Family Pigeon Holes, Praxises, and Ruts
This degree of separation also shows up at the beginning of Abraham's call. Not only was he to "go forth from your country,"  but he was also to leave his relatives, and particularly his father's house.  I know it seems odd that God would tell a person to leave his family! Some people just are not capable of wrapping their minds around it, (and the reason for that will be explained in Separation #5.) But if you can step back and look at the big picture, you can see God's purpose here was to break unhealthy attachments that would result in future problems. Because Abram chose not to leave his Pop's family, he would go on to have to deal with at least three major crises in his future. (a) He missed his timing on arriving in the promised land and therefore had not dug the wells that would have enabled him to prosper in spite of drought conditions. This sent him to Egypt, where Pharaoh had his eye on Sarai, Abram's wife. Abram resorts to deceit and tries to pass her off as his sister, this was a half-truth at best, but if you want to define "sister" in this manner, then it was an incestuous marriage, which is probably worse. While in Egypt, (b) it seems that they picked up Haggar as Sarai's personal servant; Haggar would become the mother of Ismael by Abram. God called Ismael a wild donkey, Genesis 16:12, and his descendants are affecting global politics today.  And then there was (c) Lot, his nephew on his father's side, who had to be rescued once by Abram's armies and another time by angels sent on a judgment mission from God. Extra-biblical sources, the Book of Jasher for one, report that Abraham's father, Terah formerly had direct business dealings with Nimrod, which if true, would explain why Abraham needed to be separated from the spiritual and financial forces that could get to him through his paternal heritage; it would have been a portal whereby demons would have "legitimate access" to cause trouble for Abram. 
Although being born again breaks our spiritual sin-nature lineage makes us adopted children of God, Satan can still work through the world system.  The numerous fights that Gwen would provoke in order to get KatieLyn to doubt herself worked because this family separation had not been done in a godly manner. "Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: "Like mother, like daughter." Ezekiel 16:14


3. Mind Games from Past Experiences
Abraham seems to have had above average resilience on this one. The Bible does not have much to report about insecurities that may have come by dwelling on his past failure. But God does want to separate us from or past failures and not allow them to become the metaphorical ball and chain that weights us down. When Gwen tried to convince me that KatieLyn had "done the right thing" by running off in the middle of the night because "everyone who knew her" thought that "she had not been herself" during the engagement, this need for separation from past failure is what invalidated Gwen's argument. The people Gwen was talking about all saw KatieLyn's past failures and weaknesses. They did not believe that God wanted to deliver her from her old insecurities and failures because they could not see the new nature that the Lord wanted to create in her. They were suffering from #1 Familiarity, which kept them holding her back. Now she has one more failure that she will have to separate from, and those who "know her best" want to keep her in the box that caused it.  Maybe she will will be happy there or maybe she will grow to resent them; who knows? Many people are getting by okay by managing their failures, although God would make provision for complete deliverance if they would relinquish their own control. It is the New Testament book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, verse 16, that we discover what kept Abraham from worrying about failures of his past; it was his desire for a better country, that is, a heavenly one.


4. Provision
This was Abraham's strong point. We are given quite a bit of detail about the state of his heart. Many people get tripped up on finances when they cannot separate from the world system of finance and keep trusting in dollars more than in God's provision. Abram's attitude is clearly stated in Genesis 14, right after he returns from having to rescue Lot. There had been two coalitions of kings, four against five, and Lot, who was living in Sodom at that time, was swept up in the middle of it all.  Scripture recounts this exciting adventure beginning in verse 14:

When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he led out his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.
He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. He brought back all the goods, and also brought back his relative Lot with his possessions, and also the women, and the people. Genesis 14:14-16

At this point, when Abram is in possession of all the booty, Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, comes out to pronounce a blessing on Abram and to praise God Most High who had delivered the enemies into Abram's hand. Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth (tithe) of everything. 
The king of Sodom sees this and asks for his people back, telling Abram that he can keep the goods. Abram's answer reveals his heart:

Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I have sworn to the LORD God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’  Genesis 14:22, 23

Even though according to the rules of war, as victor Abram was entitled to the spoils, he was not so attached to worldly goods that he would allow then to mess up his testimony or his walk before God. KatieLyn had financial entanglements and debts with her family. At 28 years old, she was paying her parents rent to share a bedroom with high school age sister and her parents had cosigned a loan on her car. She also invested her labor in the form of doing housework. Obviously, she was a long stretch removed from financial separation; she was dependent on her parents more than upon the Lord several years past the normal season for such dependency. Had she chosen God's plan for marriage, it would have included her financial separation and deliverance.

5. Works of the Flesh
For many people, works of the flesh become so intertwined with their finances that a doubly strong bondage is produced. Separation becomes very difficult and impedes their ability to follow the Lord. Abraham's example may be atypical in that regard, but it makes the need for separation from the flesh stand out with even more contrast. This was a real struggle for Abraham. The Hebrew word used to describe how Abraham felt is  יָרַע .  Transliterated as yara`, it means grieved to the point of trembling, greatly distressed, quivering with displeasure.
Abraham's work of the flesh had been his son Ismael by Hagar. Ismael was not the son of God's promise.

Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, "Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac." The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. Genesis 21:9-12

We go on to read that Abraham rose early the very next morning, gave Hagar and her son some provisions, and sent them on their way. There is much to be said about this, but this blog post is already fairly long so I will only list two: 1. Notice the speed of Abraham's obedience. 2. Consider how rapidly life changed for Sarah in 24 hours. When a person separates himself or herself from the decisions made in the flesh and follows God's plan,

6. Dimensional boundaries
I had a tough time naming this category because the final thing that we must separate from in order to follow God fully is our mortal limits. No, I'm not saying you have to die physically! I am saying that the worldview of our heart and mind have to be able to accommodate the expanse of the spirit realm and not get too encumbered or trapped in daily affairs of this world. We have to give ourselves space for faith to rise. In Abraham's life, his faith in the eternal was tested in a very intense physical reality. The New International Version (NIV) records it this way:   

    By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. Hebrews 11:17-19

Verse 17 makes it clear that God was testing Abraham. And to pass this test, he had to pass a point of no return. Of course, Abraham did not start off at this level. It had been a long time getting Isaac to this point; Abraham knew that he was training up the child of Promise (Isaac was in his mid-to-late thirties when he and his dad climbed the mountain to make a sacrifice) into a man who could hear and follow God.

The Lesson
If I believe the report from KatieLyn's family, (which I am loathe to do because it makes her look like a silly twit,) then KatieLyn did not understand what marriage is, she was caught up in the fantasy of wedding planning, and it does not really matter that she ran home in the middle of the night because God can always bless Joe some other way. 

I do not know how much of that to attribute to KatieLyn, how much of it originated with her mother, or why her father is so passive about the destruction occurring in his house, but I do know that they are crazy-blind for not seeing that separation is integral to moving forward with God. 


There are always separations when God asks you to move from where you are to the place He has called you to. These are ultimately healthy separations, although they may not be pain-free at the time. Every time Abraham had a separation, a greater blessing would follow. 

☘ ☘ ☘ Happy St. Patrick's Day ☘ ☘ ☘

I am working on a couple of posts right now.  

One is about God's Designs in Separation.  I am really excited about it because it explains so much about how people can miss being in God's will, even when they are "trying hard" and "doing all the right things."

The other one is about Your Life is the Result of Your Response to God's Word.  I started it first, but it is tougher to write because the runaway bride ran from God's word into confusion, and then her mom foolishly "encouraged" her to believe that God gives doubt, which He does not, and that it can be used for guidance, which is not true either.  That is actually why I need to write about God's Designs in Separation first, because a person cannot respond to God's word when they are still improperly attached to someone else.

'Anywhoodle,' as KatieLyn was wont to say,

 Happy St Patrick's Day!

☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘ ☘
You know the legends—
   You can find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but the leprechaun will betray you, vanishing the moment that you are not looking, and the gold turns to dross.
   'Sounds a bit like Leprechaun Katie, doesn't it?

Time out to reflect...

This is a "time out" day.

One year ago today, Gwen began eroding KatieLyn's faith in her answered prayer.

God had been asking KatieLyn to put down her codependency with her mother where she was, in her heart, a girl, and often a scrub girl at that, and take a step of faith to pick up her future as a woman of God. He wanted something greater for her. A year ago, God deemed her ready to mature and blossom, but she chose to cling to her childhood.  She chose to run away from the future that the Lord had chosen especially for her.

The God of Hope - Romans 15:13

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 is one of those verses that is easy to zing on past.  It sounds a lot more like a blessing or benediction than "real" instruction. If it is read quickly, it leaves an imprecise impression that you can have happy hope because God fills you with joy and peace.

This is much like driving past a garden and saying, "Oh look! There are some flowers over there." You get a quick impression of a colorful landscape, but by the next intersection if has been largely forgotten. By contrast, if you purposefully take the effort to walk through the garden and examine it more closely, then the shapes, scents, and textures are experienced very differently than when zinging on by. In today's lesson we are going to, figuratively, stop and smell the roses.

May the God of hope
He is a God of hope—the God of confident expectations.That does not say God has hope and will share with you or give you a sample. That idea may be true, but it is not the idea that is stated in Romans 15:13. It says He is the God of hope. A pagan analogy explains this better than lengthy words:
Just as Mars is the god of war—the one who presided over wars and the one to whom warriors made their appeal—our God id a God of hope, the One who presides over hope and who rewards those who diligently seek Him, one reward being the power of hope.

This has profound implications. It would be sin—rebellion against God—to destroy another person's hope. It is a sin against the God of hope to rob another person of the hope He gave to her, to mug her of the God-given expectancy, or to damage her confidence in the promise which God favored upon her.   

KatieLyn had her hope destroyed. Some she did herself, but all who planted seeds of doubt in her mind are accountable as an accessory for the loss of hope, the loss of her excited expectation that the Lord had gifted her with.

Fill you with all joy
Joy is a blessing, a gift, the favor of God. And because God is spirit, joy is a powerful spiritual force. Nehemiah 8:10: "Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Consequently, just as sowing seeds of hope-destroying doubt is a sin, sowing seeds of nay-saying that would discourage a person or cause them grief is a sin.  Because the joy of the Lord, that is His joy given to you, is your strength, being a killjoy will sap strength and weaken a person's faith.

When I met KatieLyn and from all that I knew of her,  she was filled with joy at the prospect of marriage. This joy was one of the outward indications that she was in the center of God's plan for her life: Hope had filled her with joy, and Romans 15:13 shows that this is godly. So does Psalm 16:11
You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy;  The Lord had shown her the path for her life and she was experiencing joy in knowing His presence in the answering of her prayer.   
Even the flip side becomes proof that KatieLyn was in God's will at this time. Satan launched a tempered assault to steal her joy; it was piecemeal, a little at a time. If this had not been genuine God-given joy but was merely human happiness, then the devil would have left her alone for a time. If it was not God's plan, then he would have wanted her to get married so that he could pull a rug named "divorce" out from under her later. But he kept up a slow steady pressure instead.

Filled with peace in believing
Did KatieLyn have peace in believing? Yes, at least she told me that she did. She said that the time when "she knew," which is the peace of believing, was on New Year's Day.
Even Gwen saw this! She wrote, "Seeing how quickly Katie bonded with (Joe), made it seem, for us, a God thing.  She usually doesn't do that."
And yet, in a devilish pattern that copied the stealing of KatieLyn's joy, the Advesary set out to undermine KatieLyn's peace.

Her joy had been attacked by undercutting her confidence. Now her peace was being attacked by inserting fights and provocation into her home life. KatieLyn was not fighting with Joe, but he got blamed because the fights were about him. This is deception straight from the pits of hell. Her is how KatieLyn put it in her own words:

If you and your loved ones are constantly fighting about your relationship and you normally don't fight long term about things, you might want to take a good long hard look at what is causing the arguments.

The "loved one" she was constantly fighting with was her mother, Gwen, who was also the cause of them. Gwen just could not stop herself from provoking arguments and disturbing the peace.

The reason that I can confidently say this was deception straight from the pits of hell is because of what KatieLyn wrote next:

If you have doubts about something, find someone to talk to besides¹ the person directly involved in the doubts. A pastor, friend, a parent or sibling, just someone who is removed form (sic) the drama enough to be a more neutral third party.

How could the poor girl miss the giant truth that her mother was directly involved in everything! Gwen had attempted to get Joe to meet with her behind KatieLyn's back. She was reading my email to KatieLyn. She was butting in with her mothering opinions as if KatieLyn was still a girl. But mostly she was sowing seeds of destruction with her tongue and faithless words. Gwen was not removed from the drama. She was front. She was center. She was causing and enabling it. She was the furthest thing from a "neutral third party" imaginable.  As I said earlier, KatieLyn's joy had been attacked by the undercutting of her confidence; her peace had been attacked by the provoking of fights. Together, these made a one-two punch on KatieLyn's faith in God's answer to her prayer.

As you believe in Him
Translations such as Weymouth and the NIV use trust instead of believe: as you trust in him. Another difference between various translations is use of the word as; some use for or because. These are small words with big significance to UNDERSTANDING DECEPTION. Romans 15:13 is saying that having peace is the result of and conditional upon your trust, upon your believing; peace is produced by faith.

Just as there is peace in believing, there is disquiet in doubt and unbelief. When KatieLyn and her mom made their choices to disbelieve that God had answered KatieLyn's prayer, that is when their peace left them. At the beginning, KatieLyn "knew" that it was God's answer. At the beginning, Gwen said it was "a God thing."  It was only after they lost their faith that they lost their peace and joy.  It was only after they stopped looking at God and began looking at the reasoning of this world that they no longer had peace.

KatieLyn lamented on her blog that she had stopped putting God first. That was certainly true. But she failed to identify why. People do not see Satan when he can disguise himself as an angel of light. (cf 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 in footnotes below) KatieLyn was a modern day Eve who stopped putting God first when she began doubting what He had revealed to her. Her peace was in direct ratio to the "as you believe in Him" of Romans 15:13.

KatieLyn wrote that "a good healthy relationship should be leading you closer to God, not distracting you from Him." Right in front of her face, her unhealthy relationship that was distracting her from God's plan was her relationship with her fight-provoking mom.  

So that you may overflow with hope
So that, in order to, that ye may, that you shall; these are phrases used by various translations to announce the goal:  So that you may overflow with hope, with an excess of confident expectation, fully persuaded, spilling over with the optimism of strong faith. This is the goal: Abundance of Hope.

Every good parent, every outstanding teacher, every first-rate coach, every excellent counselor knows the value of abundance of hope. Preschoolers are normally brimming with hope. They have expectations of learning something new every day, and the adults in their lives are usually encouraging them to try new things. The adults are acting "godly" in that they empower these young children with hope.

I have seen many parents neglect this as their children grow older. Instead of promoting hope, they start ragging on them, often disparaging them. Stealing another's hope is a work of darkness. It does not matter that they got the gold certificate perfect attendance award at church and give the apperance of being a 'good Christian,' when they are speaking words that erode someone else's God-given hope, then it's devilish behavior.  

The Bible has a special caution about this for fathers, (which in today's disordered society would include father-figures and female heads of household,) because when a parental-figure mistrusts and criticizes his child, the impact is amplified. "Vex not your children, lest they be discouraged," says Colossians 3:21. Note that this is a direct command from scripture: Vex not. When something is a direct command, God will make a way for you to follow His command. You are not promised "easy," but you are promised "possible." I believe KatieLyn was vexed at home, became discouraged, and made the wrong choice.

Clearly, God's will was for her to overflow with hope. Equally clear, this did not happen.

By the power of the Holy Spirit.

When I said that God makes a way to follow His commands, this is what I was alluding to: By the power of the Holy Spirit. Hope is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is really important to get this because if you miss this point, then Satan's schemes have an open season to deceive you.

Let's review the verse in its entirety, this time from the Amplified Bible:

May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

Your faith, your believing in Him, is required in order to be filled with joy and peace. Paul's prayer is that you be so full of hope that you are abounding—bubbling over! The Holy Spirit cannot release this power in you when you are doubting God; you must be in faith and in agreement with Him.
Faith brings the expectations of hope. If you don't have joy and peace, then you are not believing. If you are not believing, then you nullify the power of the Holy Spirit. He cannot fill you beyond your level of belief.

The Lesson
KatieLyn has chosen to continue live in denial and maintain the codependency with her mom.  It is rather sad.
I simply do not believe KatieLyn's assertion after breaking up the wedding when she wrote that "I feel peace and joy returning to my life and am excited to see what God has next for me!" I do not believe her peace and joy returned to the level that it was between New Year's Day, 2015, when she first believed God had answered her prayer, and March 14th, 2015, when her mother began her voyage of doubting that God could actually have answered her daughter's prayers. What KatieLyn was "feeling" and labeling as "joy and peace returning" was in reality Satan leaving her alone; mission accomplished.

If you don't have joy and peace, then you are not believing. When KatieLyn was believing God, she had joy. As she stopped believing God, she became filled with angst. The adversary, the devil, tricked her into doubting what God said. Like Eve, she may have been shown the "tree" that was desirable to make one wise, cf Genesis 3:6. I don't know what form KatieLyn's tree may have taken, but since her mom said that doubts were normal and it was "wise" to consider your doubts, it is likely that her tree was related to a mistaken search for wisdom. 

KatieLyn was wrong to blame her loss of joy and peace on a bad engagement. She lost her joy and peace because she doubted God.  "Hope" is not a wish; in the original Greek, hope is confident expectation. Romans 15:13 shows that this kind of hope is contingent upon trusting God:

  May the God of confident expectation fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with confident expectation by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To overflow in hope and experience the accompanying joy and peace, you have to believe God.
As you trust in Him, you may be filled to overflow. 

❦     ❦     ❦ 

¹Notice how in KatieLyn's advice above, she advises talking to people "besides the person directly involved." Her "besides" did not mean "in addition to," it meant "to the exclusion of.")

2 Corinthians - 13For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

The Notebook

The Notebook is a 2004 film directed by Nick Cassavetes, which is based on a 1996 novel written by Nicholas Sparks.  The plot bears only a loose resemblance to the Runaway Bride's situation, but because the film has come up several times in discussion, I have decided to address the two plot points that do have something in common with KatieLyn's saga of love lost (or tossed).

The story is told in flashbacks by an elderly man in a nursing home as he reminisces about the days when he returned from WWII and restored an antebellum mansion.  His audience is an equally elderly woman who fades in and out of dementia, a plot device that sets up a surprise-twist climax to the novel, but is not relevant to our discussion here.

The few points that do match are these: (1) A young man fell deeply in love, and the mother of the young lady did not like him.  (2) The mother went so far as to seize control of and block all communication between the man and her daughter. 

"The Notebook" refers to the letters that the hero had faithfully written to the young lady, but which she never saw  because they were intercepted and deviously kept from her by her mother.

This is what we do not know— does this part of the story match too?  Joe has sent KatieLyn several letters, cards, and gifts.  He can follow the tracking numbers and has proof that they were delivered to her home. But she has not responded, not even to tell him in person that she does not want to be pursued further; and since she was most probably at work when they arrived, it is certainly within the realities of the codependency with her mother that she does not know he sent them. None of us would put it past Gwen to open KatieLyn's mail. She has already admitted that she read KatieLyn's email.

Even though the novel has a suitably sappy ending, the fact remains that the most productive years of their adult lives were squandered by the interventions of a mother who walked by sight, not by faith; who regarded money and prestige more than the happiness of her daughter; and who, although she convinced herself that she was "doing the right thing," did not love the truth.

It is very dangerous to not love the truth.  In the end, this no-love-of-truth is what will do men in.

They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth in order to be saved.
For this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe what is false, so that all will be condemned—those who did not believe the truth but enjoyed unrighteousness. 
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

I feel like I was put in a catch-22 when it came to quoting that verse.  I could have edited it a bit to focus on only the parts I need to highlight, or I could quote it in its entirety, (which I did,) but then be at risk of the reader whining that this is a "salvation only" scripture that pertains to eternal life. Well, no, the refusal to love the truth applies to all of life; it is not limited to the question of where one chooses to spend eternity. 

Verse 10 says that it is the failure to receive the love of the truth that allows a person to be tricked!
Here it is in the King James Version: 

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

"Deceivableness!" What a word! My spell-checker is having fits, but the meaning becomes clear.  At the end of the age, people will be deceived by the antichrist because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. KatieLyn became 'deceivable' because she did not receive the love of the God's truth for her. She was deceived into accepting her mother's version of a "truth" instead. Failure to love what God had revealed to her allowed her to be tricked by her own mom! 

The Lesson
In the end, the outcome does not depend on whether or not KatieLyn knows about "the notebook" items that Joe has sent in an effort to open communication. It would be easier for her to make good decisions if she did know, but if she doesn't love the truth enough to even allow herself to hear it, then Satan can freely supply other advisers in her life who will make sure that she stays deluded.

It is quite possible to have "selective delusions." That is, it is quite possible to be right about one thing and be simultaneously wrong about another. Spiritual principles do not change with chance or impulse. Not loving the truth is a sure way to deception. KatieLyn may love the Lord's truth of salvation enough to be saved by faith, but she did not value His truth for a husband enough to cultivate her faith in marriage. She allowed others to come and rob the joy of her faith. She will remain deceived until she decides to love truth.

✩ On Overload ✩ the case against too much support

On Overload  ★   the case of too much support

One of the surprising (to me*) lessons of the runaway bride was the devilish tactic of using too much support. I haven't had much experience with codependent relationships, and I was unprepared for the magnitude of control that is involved.

I saw KatieLyn as being pretty well-centered, yet a bit offset toward the introverted end of the Meyers-Briggs spectrum. I assumed that she liked her personal space to process new situations, so I did not push myself on her. Maybe she interpreted a lack of gushy hugs and personal questions as not liking her, but that is not the case. I figured that she was a grown woman and she did not need her future mother-in-law hovering over.  I thought I'd  her set the pace for developing a relationship during the engagement period. I thought we'd have a lifetime to discover how this in-law thing works, and that it would be best to allow it grow at its own pace.

Alas, that approach was an utter failure. It may even inadvertently scared her further because I suspect, at some level, she accepts others' desire to give her their opinions and push her beliefs to conform with theirs as an act of love. That is what her mother, Gwen, does. So why wouldn't KatieLyn think that is a form of love?

Gwen was supportive. She was so supportive that she supported KatieLyn right out of God's will. She did this by supporting KatieLyn's insecurity. She did this by supporting KatieLyn's anxiety. Gwen supported KatieLyn right out of God's will by supporting all the negatives.

Gwen was so supportive that she fertilized the negatives to ensure that they'd grow even larger! This tactic, by the way, is sinful.  I am not saying that we should all become like Pollyanna, who was blindly optimstic, but the world has a way of shooting down optimism. The reverse is not true. The world does not boost overly pessimistic persons, rather, it kicks them further down. Brothers and sisters in Christ are commanded to think on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, cf Phillippians 4:8. But Gwen was not dwelling on what was excellent or praiseworthy in her daughter's romance, she was not modeling that virtue, and she was not supportive of a daughter who did. Gwen's notion of support was to advocate for the devil—to be the devil's advocate.

If KatieLyn wanted her mother's support, then she had to think like her mother. She had to entertain thoughts that Joe would fight with her, that Joe's friends would side against her, and that ultimately Joe would grow to hate her.  None of that is true, but when you let your mind wander away from the the truths God has revealed, you set yourself up for deception.

And of course, KatieLyn desperately wanted her mom's support. The very fact that she was willingly in a codependent relationship is proof that she craved her mom's support. It allowed her, the second sister, to come in as Number 1 every now and then.

Gwen used the same playbook to try and convince me that KatieLyn "did the right thing" by running home in the middle of the night. She told me how much support KatieLyn was getting! LOL! The support came from church friends and her hometown pastors, none of whom had ever met Joe, none of whom ever heard his side of it, none of whom could have seen what God was doing here, but all of whom had no reason or benefit to be earned by contradicting KatieLyn's insistence that she wasn't running away from God's plan for her life.

Now let me tell you the flipside—the kind of support that Joe got—because it fell into two VERY DIFFERENT categories which were split between (a) those who'd met KatieLyn, and (b) those who had not.  It is hard to categorize the responses of those who had met her with precise accuracy, but in general terms, the consensus was that she was being an idiot. Most assumed that she was scared into making stupid decision, some thought she was crazy for rejecting Joe, and others marveled that she could have faked it so well and was therefore crazy in a cannot-be-trusted way. Only those who had never met her at all said that "it might be better this way" or that "maybe Joe had missed a bullet." Nobody, not one, said that KatieLyn had done the right thing.

The Lesson
Being supportive is not a virtue in and of itself. Being supportive is good only if you know that you are supporting God's plan, which Gwen admitted not knowing. KatieLyn got an overload of support to question God, but she was given an unpressured, libertarian-style support to obey Him. We encouraged her lightly with sprinklings of compliments. Her mom discouraged her strongly, to the point of arguing. These were two opposing forces of "support."

Her mother's support was huge, to the point of being compelling, but it was a support that led to questioning herself (had she really heard God?) and it was a support that led to doubting God (did He really say that?) It was supportive in a way that pressured KatieLyn because if she would align with her mother, then she'd get a big payoff of sympathy.  Sympathy would feel better than the doubt that she was getting as a result of her mother's support! 

Doing what you should be doing is not mind-boggling; it may be uncomfortable, but it is not mind-boggling. KatieLyn's doubts did not come from God. God knew exactly what He wanted and He'd told her. Walking out God's plan in life does not leave one buried under an avalanche of crushing emotion. And though the high-pressure tactics of the devil may trigger an avalanche, God did not send it and He will not let you be buried under it—unless you want to be.





*It was surprising to me because my life experience has been one of underwhelming support with an occasional helping of downright discouragement on the side; but that is a story for another day.

Presidential Politics and the Runaway Bride - Purity vs Triage

Welcome to Super Tuesday! 

Today I'd like to refer my readers to an article by Gina Loudon titled "Voter Psychology: Purity versus Triage." The link is in the footnotes.

In this article, Dr. Loudon (PhD in psychology) analyzes possible outcomes that may result from how voters make their choices. Although she is giving a political analysis, I think you will soon see that there are some very real parallels between reasonings and emotions voters use to mark their ballots and the choices made by the runaway bride.

Loudon begins by establishing that all choices have a cost, and then analyzes the current top-three candidates in the GOP primary race. The way she sees it:
Ted Cruz - political reality has forced him to compromise; he is partially owned by an establishment that will turn on him if he tries to govern independently from them.
Marco Rubio - moved up the line when Jeb Bush's campaign could not catch on, he is even more fully owned by the establishment. His presidency would be business as usual.
Donald Trump - does not fit the political template. Many who are afraid to trust him are supporting him anyway because if the borders are not secure, there is no America as we knew her.

Dr. Loudon concludes:

The psychology here is fascinating. Many of those who risked all to dismantle the establishment decided that the establishment can feel a lot more comfortable than the unknown. [...]  Is it political triage or political purity for you this election cycle?

That is a question that the runaway bride answered when she decided that she felt a lot more comfortable with "the establishment" than she did with the unknown. It is a question that the Israelites answered in the days of Moses when they decided that they felt a lot more comfortable with the manna on the backside of the desert than they did with the unknowns of Beulah Land.

For KatieLyn, the establishment is her parents' home.  She decided that the 'known' is a lot safer, even though she would have had mega-tons more personal influence and control over her homelife by getting married.  50% in a leadership role (wife) is a whale of a lot more influence than 20% of a subordinate role (daughter). During the courtship, she repeatedly told Joe that she was ready to get out from under her mother's control. "Maybe she was, just not for the reasons she may have originally thought," to quote her equally capricious mother.

In any event, KatieLyn was not going to "risk all to dismantle the establishment." She wasn't going to risk anything!  She was going to play it safe. She was going to conform to her mother's "be 100% sure" standard, which of course, is 100% unattainable.

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
~ James 4:14

We do not know what our life will be like tomorrow. What we have is a choice at the polls, a tiny say in how we cast our future. The best way to make the best choice is to hear what God is saying and to follow where He is leading. 

I'm seeing  lot of people who are predicting what God wants without ever taking time to listen and obey.  Their candidate was chosen for reasons that they can justify to themselves, not because God said, "This is the one!" Others don't even vote; no one is good enough for them so they will let the ungodly do the electing for them.  If they think that they can wait it out, that if they are patient enough, that God will send a better politician...  or worse, if they falsely console themselves that God will do what He wants and work it out in the end... Those are the slackers in the parables, the people who did not put the resources that God gave them to any use. They are the ones called worthless servants.

The Lesson
We are never going to have a "perfect" candidate run for office. KatieLyn is never going to find a "perfect" man for whom she can be 100% sure either. What she did have though, at one point, was the Lord's 100% answer to her prayer, and His ways are perfect. "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just," Deuteronomy 32:4.
God is not unreasonable.  He knows we don't have any perfect candidates, but He isn't going to accept that as an excuse either. He knew Joe and KatieLyn could have been "more better" for each other than they were alone. His plan was to have them marry. KatieLyn disagreed and ran off.
We should be making our choices according to the Lord's plan for our lives, and that will mean that we must walk by faith. It is wrong to run back to a place the Lord wants to lead you out of.  That is true both personally and politically.
I'd tell you to ask Lot's wife about the danger in turning back, but she isn't talking much anymore.

Loudon, G. "Voter Psychology: Purity versus Triage." WND. February 28, 2016. Accessed February 29, 2016. http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/voter-psychology-purity-versus-triage/.