Wolves

It is a hard road to go down sometimes. To remember all the ways someone has wronged you. They well up and drown out any good that may or may not have existed. It’s easy to want to take God’s place and pour out our own justice as we see fit. Sometimes it may very well be justified in our own eyes. Especially when it is someone close to us. It’s very difficult to look at things how God would have us look at things when someone has lived a double life for decades and now wants you to believe that they are different. When these people want to focus only on verses that talk about forgiveness they end up using them as a weapon and out of context.

God is a God of love yes, but He is first a God of Justice and in some sense there is a righteous indignation for sin that should be in all of us when we find out about it. While it’s true that sin of any kind deserves death, there are sins that require a person to have restrictions placed to protect others. The goal is not to inflict the pain that you experienced onto this person. The hope and prayer should be for real repentance and a true sorrow and changing from wickedness. For that person to go to God and accept all earthly consequences for what they have done. To show real repentance they need to make restitution to the person that they have hurt and be willing to accept whatever earthly consequences that may incur.

When a person claiming to be a “Christian” sexually abuses a child this child almost inevitably turns away from the church. This is heartbreaking but also understandable. Jesus is very clear on what He thinks about people who cause one of His little ones to stumble. He is incensed and outraged at injustice perpetrated against the weak and vulnerable. Jesus was angry when the pharisees who paraded around in pretentious religiosity were making the Temple of the Lord into a den of thieves.. He loved the sinners and the lowly, he had compassion for them. He called people who paraded as His own while hurting the weak, “wolves”. A person who knows Jesus, who knows what is right, yet willingly hurts a child and abuses them for their own pleasure is a wolf. A person who committed these acts while claiming that they knew Jesus is not someone who can ever be trusted again. Especially when they have already lived decades of their life claiming to be a Christian. Yes, there is still hope for this person's soul. Yes, Jesus can heal the most wicked of hearts. However, those who prey on the weak like to use the verses on forgiveness as weapons. They manipulate naive trusting people to trust them again… and again. They get better at hiding what they do, they try harder to appear perfect. They try to silence the truth. The wolf will have no care to make restitution to the child they have hurt and hopes to continue their life free of any discomfort. To just assume someone is saved “for real” this time is not wise and will inevitably create more victims in the end. We cannot see the heart as God can. We have a responsibility to the weak and vulnerable to protect them and to keep them from harm. Anyone who has raped a child even once should never be around children again. When someone is truly repentant they will not see these boundaries as a threat or as anything other than wise. God can see the heart but we cannot and He has told us to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. It is wise to put systems in place that don’t allow a child rapist to be around children. It is wise to tell the church community when someone has sexually abused a child. It is wise to place boundaries.

While we cannot take justice into our own hands, we can pray for these abusers and their soul and pray that God truly gets a hold of their heart. We can let go of bitterness and hurt and know that God is in control. Most of all though, we need to pray for the victims, pray that they are not turned away from God forever because of someone's evil actions.

The church is also responsible for the victim that is no longer wanting anything to do with God. The Church puts the burden of forgiveness back onto victims who have endured more than I will ever know or truly understand. The church instead of protecting the vulnerable instead points out people who want to speak the truth and labels them as gossipers. They are labeled as troublemakers and are silenced. The Church should be running to reach out to victims and to get them help. To tell them that what happened to them by someone claiming the name of Jesus is the most corrupt and perverted thing a person can do. The church can change one person at a time. Pray for healing for victims. Pray for change. Pray that the Truth will set people free.

Listen to my story on Sons Of Patriarchy on all major podcast platforms. linked here as well https://youtu.be/_zSqY_1hYXg?si=BeXEixmupZtux7WB