Reflections on God's Word

Are you Feeling Unclean?

Rape has a way of creating a sense of inner filth. A deep sense of dirt that is hard to shift. Such abuse touches that private, intimate part of us in such a way that even though any outward scars may heal, the inward ones do not. No amount of physical cleansing will shift this dirt.

The Bible tells of another type of uncleanness. This is one people may struggle little with if they deny even its reality: sin. Before a truly holy God, we are ‘dirty’; it is part of our fallen nature. The Old Testament records the way people tried to symbolically cleanse themselves off this dirt by various rituals. However, no amount of self cleansing could do what was necessary to stand before God.

Only the blood of Christ, perfect in every sense, could be an acceptable sacrifice. His sacrifice makes real the promise that through faith in Him, we become perfectly clean before God. If you are a non-believer reading this you might think that the reality of our own uncleanness before God merely increases the emotional burden you might now be carrying. However, here is the promise: God is able to perfectly cleanse you so that when you die you may stand before Him confident, not in your own attempts to ‘clean up’, but in His ‘cleaning up’ of you, by giving you Christ to lean on.

The world may provide you with systems of self help, of therapy and so on. Only God can cleanse you of the dirt that keeps you from Him. God can also help you remove the dirt that another human has caused you to bear. Before Him, whatever has happened to you and however you feel, you are clean, you have inherent worth, and you have dignity.

Realising the uncleanness we are born with does not psychological disturb us: it sets us free.

He Cares for You

The silence surrounding rape can be difficult. It stops you talking. Where do you go when the memories come back, when perhaps marks on your body remind you, when an inability to form and sustain relationships reproduces the silence or when anxiety becomes chronic and even disabling?

There is a deep loneliness that comes with such abuse. When Jesus sat up throughout the night before his arrest, knowing the physical and spiritual torment he must soon experience, he asked his disciples to keep watch, telling them how his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow (Matthew 26:36-46). They fell asleep. When he was arrested those who had claimed to love him fled.

Jesus Christ knows what it is to suffer alone. He experienced the full range of human emotions. We do not have a God who is distant and unable to sympathise. We have one who is personal and knows. He knows as you read this what emotional pain you are experiencing and he urges you to cast all your anxieties upon him (1Peter 5 :7).

The Lord is not silent. He knows, listens and cares. He can lighten your burden by carrying it Himself. If you know Christ, go to Him with your anger and tears. He will not push you away.

If you do not know Him yet, He calls you this very day so that He may grant you rest (Matthew 12:28-30).

The Healing Touch of Christ

Mark 5:25-34 recounts the moment when a woman who had suffered for many years from a bleeding disorder sought out Jesus for help. She said nothing to Him. She merely reached out and touched His cloak, knowing that if He was willing, He could heal her. She needed help. She needed freedom from her suffering. At that touch, her bleeding and her suffering ceased. The cloak was not magic. It contained no power. Instead the one who wore it had divine power to heal, He still has ultimate power to touch and heal those who reach out in faith to Him. Jesus told the woman that her suffering was over, not because she had touched the cloak, but because of her faith in His ability to heal her. He told her to go in peace and be free from her suffering.

Psalm 28: 7 relates David’s reliance on and faith in God. The Lord was his strength, his shield. He trusted in Him and was helped. That same power exists today. Christ is still willing to provide a healing touch to all who reach out in faith. His touch will provide the power so that we know with certainty that what is impossible for man is absolutely possible for God. His touch will provide the power to transform us so that sin is no longer the guiding principle in our lives. And His power can strengthen us as we live with the consequences of the sin of others-we need only reach out in faith.

The Lord is Close to the Broken-hearted : Two Promises from God

In Psalm 34 David exhorts the reader to fear the Lord. That fear is not the destructive fear associated with abusive experiences; rather it is the fear that sets you free. It is the recognition that God is indeed who He says he is and that we stand before Him justly condemned, and yet this is the wonderful promise: He saves those who are ‘crushed in spirit’, those who cry out to Jesus to set them free from this condemnation: ‘...no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him’.

In verse 18, the truth of the gospel is therefore revealed. We need only cry out and He will hear us and save us as we are ‘crushed in spirit’; recognising, that is, our dependency upon God for mercy. And then, once saved, the same verse 18 becomes ever more glorious. For the brokenhearted believer, He is close. He is ‘attentive to their cry’ and ‘he delivers them from all their troubles’. For the unbeliever reading this, God is making you a promise: come to him with a contrite heart, trusting in Christ’s actions in history, and you will be saved. Perhaps abuse has broken you mentally, even physically, and there seems no way forward. Take this promise to God in prayer. He does not lie. Let Him set you free and then hold on to the promise for the believer: that he is close, He is attentive to your cries. You are not alone.

You Are Wonderfully Made

Abuse can shatter a person’s sense of self: you become ‘dirty’, ‘useless’ and ‘good for nothing’. Your suspicions are heightened when people act in a way suggesting this is not the case. At worse they have hidden motives; at best they obviously can’t really know you. Perhaps your crushed self reveals itself in a constant mistrust of others, an inability to pursue and or sustain relationships and an obvious sense of self disregard expressed in the way you look, dress and speak. Or perhaps you try to disguise your crushed self by over compensating in terms of apparent confidence levels. You might have a hundred adjectives that you would use to describe yourself-‘wonderfully made’ probably not one of them.

God created you. He knew you while you were not yet not fully formed in your mother’s womb. All His works are wonderfully made-that includes you (Psalm 139:14). You have inherent worth that no sin committed against you can destroy. Define yourself, not in reference to your own actions or personality, nor with reference to how others have made you feel. Define yourself objectively in relation to being a created work of God: fearlessly and wonderfully made.