In last week’s post “Deceived by False Doctrine” I discussed some specific false doctrines, about God, that have deceived me and other people. Whether a church directly teaches errors or people misunderstand the truth and come up with wrong ideas, the false doctrine pulls them away from the true heart of God. This week I explain how we can help ourselves and our Christian friends root out those errors.
We study the Bible to learn how about God and his amazing love for us, but our biases can distort our ability to actually see God and hear what he is saying. Many biases come from childhood and early adult years. If our parents hurt us or struggled to show us healthy love, we often attributed the same problems to God. If teachers and friends hurt us when we were very young, we may have also attributed those untrustworthy qualities to God. If a romantic partner hurt us, especially when we were young, we may also attribute this pain to God.
We need to examine our life and be honest about pain we suffered. Examining our childhood and early adulthood can seem too painful, and many people would rather not look at their feelings and memories. But this lack of hard work only causes people to carry a so-called “dull pain” throughout their lives. They would be amazed to learn that feeling the pain and telling God and a safe people about it actually eases the pain. Initially it is far more painful to stop denying the pain and then face it. But over time, the pain subsides, and eventually we find so much joy. At that point, people can look back at their lives before processing the pain and be amazed by how much they did hurt, and by how they do not ache deeply anymore.
The process of admitting to pain is essential, not just so we feel less pain later in life, but also to help us recognize the patterns of emotional pain in our lives. Once we see those patterns, we can examine our Christian faith and test our beliefs. The false doctrine hides in the areas of our past hurt and suffering.
For example, I described my biases towards thinking God is judging me harshly or just putting up with me, as if loving me was a difficult job for him. I felt my own parents struggled to love me, because I was so different from my mom, and because my dad was a workaholic, not home enough and emotionally aloof. These are some areas where I suffered from false doctrine. I knew God loved me, but I sensed I was not a joy to him. This contradicts Bible passages telling me God finds joy in me. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.” God does not ask me to change for him to delight in me. He just chooses to do so. But I had read my Bible many times and never heartily agreed with this passage. I read that passage from the logical side of my brain, but my heart did not hear that passage. Yet it has always been true. I had to face my emotional pain and also realize that my parents were weak for struggling to love me. Yes, they did love me, but also yes—they found me hard to love. But that did not make me a bad child. It was not my fault that my innate personality was different from my mom’s. It was not my fault that my dad had a hard childhood and chose to clam up emotionally to protect himself and in the process shut out me and my 3 siblings (in regard to vulnerability.) Neither of my parents were comfortable being emotionally vulnerable with me. As a result, I did not heartily believe God when he spoke of his emotional vulnerability with me. Yes, Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said he yearned to tuck them under his wings like a mother bird but they would not let him (Luke 19:41-44.) But I did not let that reality sink in, because my own parents were never that vulnerable with their love for me. They were dutiful about their love, providing me with food, a roof over my head, doctor’s appointments. They did love me, and I know this today. I also know they did what they felt was best, and I am so thankful for the many, many good things they did for me. Too many parents walk out on their children, and mine did not. I am blessed compared to too many innocent children who do not have as much love and safety as my parents gave me. But they still lacked in some areas, and as a result, I developed a false idea of God, because of the areas where my parents were lacking.
So you can see, using me as an example, a person who has suffered in any way in relationship to her parents will also apply that experience to God. This is why I urge my readers, whether they are young gals or mature women, please invite God to help you look at your younger years and see if you suffered in any way. Like me, you can be so thankful for all the good things your parents, teachers, romantic partner and friends did for you. I am thankful for all of these. You are not disrespecting any of these people when you acknowledge areas where they let you down. After all, you have let some other people down too, due to the areas where you are weak. There is no judgment here. We are just searching for any pain, so we can also see if there are any areas in your relationship with God that are similar.
You see, while our friends and family were imperfect, God is not. He did not let us down, even in times when we thought he did. In some of my earlier posts (ones like, “Disappointed in Earthly Father: Disappointed in God” “Abandoning God When Disappointed?” “Why Does God Allow Good People to Suffer?” and many others) I talked about why God allows us to suffer and why we bring that pain to him. It hurts to suffer, but God has shown us that he allowed his own son to suffer for us. God has a good plan, even in our suffering. But this post is not to clarify why God allows suffering, but to encourage us to look back at our earlier suffering so we can make sure we have not misconstrued God’s heart for us, due to that pain. God does not let us down, even when we suffer. God always loves us, (Lamentations3:22-23, “Certainly the faithful love of the Lord hasn’t ended; certainly God’s compassion isn’t through! They are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”) God always protects us (Psalm46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”) He always wants to listen to us (1Peter3:12a “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer.”) He is always sad with us when we grieve (Isaiah66:13a, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”) He can be everything, our friends, family members and even we ourselves, cannot be. We have to trust that our friends and family members did their human best to love us. We can be thankful for everything good they did for us. But for all the ways they let us down, we must examine our minds and hearts, because in those places of pain, false doctrine could be lurking. It happened to me, and I have met many people who have admitted to the same sorrow.
Look at any repeating patterns with people or problems in your life. If you frequently “end up with” difficult people (friends, bosses, partners), could this reveal areas where you have not fully understood God’s heart for you? If you frequently push people away and always feel lonely, could there be a place in your life where you suffered and now don’t let God get close to you too? Do you sabotage yourself and often cause your own failures? Could something from your past cause you to think God will not allow you to succeed? I could go on with this list, but I want you to ask yourself similar questions. The “chronic problems” we suffer in life might be speaking to us. They speak of false beliefs that come from our experiences with people, and then we applied them to God. Not all suffering comes from false beliefs. But if you see a consistent pattern, please spend time alone with God and ask him. If you believe you need help, consider opening your heart to share your ideas with someone who is mature in the Lord. Choose someone who has joy and peace in her life. This might be a professional counselor. It might be a wise woman you know from your church or a trusted family member. The key is to find someone who is kind and gentle who will listen to you, if you feel you cannot work on this on your own. There is no shame in sharing with another person, because we might have a bias against letting God get very close to us. In that case, another person can pray with us and help to guide us to think the right way about God. James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to one another,” not to shame us, but so we can find comfort from others who have suffered too. They can even give us advice about what worked for them.
These are the first steps towards discovering false doctrine and rooting it out of your life. I pray this has encouraged you but also admonished you if you realize you suffer from these repeating patterns in your own life. God can help you (along with kind friends) to examine any patterns of youthful pain that have distorted your understanding of your loving, heavenly father. False doctrine does not need to damage your relationship with the Lord. Please welcome the Lord into all of these painful areas of life. God is crazy about you, and the first step to healing is letting him come into those areas.
Thanks so much for joining us in this week’s post! Always let me know if there are any areas where you would like me to expand on the topic I write about. We love you!