Overcoming Church Hurt

What do you do or how do you feel when the place you ran to for healing begins to hurt you, begins to remove your bandages prematurely? ‪#‎OvercomingChurchHurt

For the longest while I have been prompted by the Holy Spirit to “write where you are” and for the longest while I have not written anything. I always have the urge to write but I never know what about. I always put it off thinking that an idea will come, but the Spirit of God keeps saying to me “write where you are”

It is kind of emotional because I have to figure out where I am in order to write it. A feeling has been on my heart for the longest while. Church hurt. I’ve heard about it and the last I expected was to experience it. The topic came about because I saw a previous blog about it and when I fell in the situation, I tried to find the blog but I couldn’t find it. So, where I am, I will write.

Church hurt. My definition is simply the people in church who will hurt you. Understand that the purest form of church is Christ Himself and He will in no wise hurt us. Yes, the situations He gives us the grace to endure will definitely hurt us, we are human so inevitably our perception will force us to believe that it is God who has hurt us but that is far from the case.

My biggest problem is perceiving that people in church are always godly, I place certain expectations on “church folk” and I expect from them a certain type and way of behaviour that when they don’t live up to the standards I placed on them in my mind; they have failed and they have hurt me. I specifically remembered one prayer I prayed in church “God, please remind us that we are the church and we merely attend a building to fellowship”

It was wrong of me to expect behaviours and standards from people just because they were in church or in a position of power within the church. I feel like that is a plan of the enemy to distract us from the true purpose of attending the church building, which is to fellowship with the saints of God.

Another thing is when you have expectations of other people it disqualifies them from needing grace, so as soon as they mess up we automatically don’t forgive them, allow them to heal and move on. People are not perfect and that is why we leave church hurt because we expect to behave supernaturally giving them no space to be human.

I’m not saying that their behaviour is acceptable or we should subject ourselves to be treated like dirt; I’m just saying that sometimes, most of the time the problem is our perception. That person who hurt you needs Jesus, forgiveness and salvation just as much as you do!

What if that person is acting from a place of hurt and their behaviour is just a cry for attention?

We should allow God to deal with our hearts, we should ask God to give us insight, maybe the person who hurt you is the only way they could get attention and they just want somebody to pray for them.

So how do you overcome church hurt?

The safest, most effective way is to run to God. Ultimately, He has all the answers.

That means that take all your problems, the way you feel, the person, the pastor and all the members of the church before God. Cry if you have to because the bible says He is touched by the feeling of our infirmities. He knows what it is to feel pain, to be scared, God knows and He has the power to do something about it. It makes no sense to sit on the phone and complain to other people who are powerless to fix the situation. God can fix it. So, run, run as fast as you can to His throne of grace. Maybe, just maybe you need a lesson in forgiving other people!