Being a victim or playing one

Being a victim and "playing the victim" is not the same. Being a victim is rooted in the reality of being harmed i.e. you or someone else was really and truly hurt and suffered a loss of some kind - physically, emotionally, materially, reputation wise etc. - at the hands of another i.e. an offender. 

"Playing the victim" however is rooted in self-pity and seeking to garner the pity of others by using the harm-pain the victim has experienced to gain sympathy and even attempt to manipulate others. Someone may have been genuinely hurt, but "playing the victim" uses "victimhood" often to ¹exact revenge or seek a benefit (or both) from others in order to self-comfort or self-protect.

Being harmed is real as well as wrong and should be fully acknowledged and recognized for what it is. This is ²necessary to help the victim be freed from the offense, - i.e. to be able to forgive the offender - learn what they can through it - about God's forgiveness or self-forgiveness etc. - and move on with their life. 

Seeking self-pity by playing the victim is simply an attempt to self-love instead of depending on and looking to the God of love who ultimately uses all things - including offenses - for the good of those who love him.

Possibly the most important thing to know about unforgiveness (i.e.  trouble letting go of offenses) is it may be an indication you do not know your own great offenses against God (and others) and the forgiveness offered to you. 

For more on God's solution to offenses click here.

For a discussion on racism and forgiveness click here.

For a discussion on values, culture and racism click here.

For a personal story of being a victim of discrimination click here.

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¹I would suggest a great deal -- though certainly not all that drives the victim agenda -- sometimes referred to as "social justice" in various forms - e.g. "me too" "black lives matter" "men or whites are evil" feminism, racism, etc - is this very desire to hurt others because we have been hurt. To say it succinctly, playing the victim is usually rooted in revenge due to bitterness over past offenses. 

Though there are real issues (offenses) we must look at in all attempts at justice, we can not see offenses clearly until the underlying emotional hurt is addressed first i.e. forgiven. Anger/revenge rarely produces objective or clear thinking, no matter what position one takes on different issues. There is unrighteous anger on all sides of the political spectrum.

Any agenda driven by retaliation or retribution is not driven by love. No matter how offended we have been we are still called to love others... even our enemies. Christ modeled this himself and best when hanging on the cross he said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." 

One remains in pain if a wound goes unaddressed/unhealed. This is why emotions are just under the surface for those in pain and easily triggered and so passionately vented when a new offense occurs - even if no offense actually occurred or was intended. When there is a real offense, often the response is out of proportion to the offense. This is our first clue there is unresolved anger/bitterness from past offenses. A response-reaction that comes out of pain is never a rational one but almost always emotional e.g. filled with anger, hate, etc. 

People are often not able to explain why they are so easily triggered out of proportion to the offense itself because it's buried so deeply. 

What is the solution? Forgiveness that springs forth from our being forgiven by God. This is so basic it is a major part of the Lord's prayer.

11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Matthew 6:11-13 (ESV)

²in order to truly and fully forgive and completely be freed we must know the full extent of the harm. To say it another way, if we forgive a small offense when a large one actually occurred, we are not getting to the bottom of the issue and therefore can not be fully freed from it.

Of course even more fundamental is recognizing the extent of our own offense against God himself and the length to which he went to remedy it... and did,  in and through Christ.  Without a clear understanding of our own offense to God and the full extent of his forgiveness of us, we can never truly forgive others.

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Question...How do you feel about the picture to the right? Some may find it highly offensive. If you do, this actually serves to underscore my point. You may wish to dig inside a little to understand why. If you find yourself "triggered," angry or even feeling rage by this card, it may be a good indication you have unresolved bitterness over past offenses. 

You may be bothered by the picture for another reason. 

It is right to have compassion for those who have been harmed or broken in some way. Christ certainly did. Some may feel this picture mocks this and are bothered for this reason. And that is good. Not that you are offended, but that you care. A significant part of Christ's ministry was to heal those who were damaged - more so from physical than emotional pain, though these are usually connected and not entirely separate. The pain people feel is real and deserves being acknowledged for what it is i.e. the fruit of living among broken people, in a broken world, and the harm that comes to us as a result. 

The pain of others should matter to us because it mattered to Christ. It matters to him because he also wrongfully suffered at the hands of others far more than any of us. 

When our pain produces humility we are on the road to healing. If it produces anger, anxiety, depression, etc we may have some work to do yet. 

I personally think the above card is a clever and appropriate analogy of how some use past offenses to "cash in" on their suffering. This would be more true of the "leaders" of the "victim movement" themselves, than the actual victims.

The spiritual and our spirit.

The spiritual is that which addresses our spirit; the essence of our being i.e. our identity, our sense of value, our glory, our capacity to love and be loved and partake of and participate in God who is love, value, and glory.

We are also told God is Spirit. This is not arbitrary but essential to who God is and to understand not only God but ourselves. What makes God a person is not his physicality (he is Spirit). Therefore, as his image bearer, it is not the essence of our being a person *either. Since God is not physical, this can not be the essence of who we are as His image-bearers i.e. how we are like God. To say another way, we don't say we have a nose like God (He doesn't have one) but we can say we give and receive love like God.  

We are the way we are because God is the way he is. We are like God. To say it another way, if we wish to understand who we are as spiritual beings, we must understand who God is as Spirit. 

The love of God is manifested as the Spirit of God. We are told God is love, and he is Spirit. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. The essence of God is love. When the bible says God is Spirit, it is saying God is love, and when it says God is love it is also saying God is Spirit. American theologian Jonathan Edwards says while **the Word (Christ, the eternal Logos/Word) is the perfect self-understanding/knowledge of God i.e. the light (truth) of God, the Spirit is the perfect love of God for himself as revealed in his Son. To say it another way, the Spirit is the "heat' or passion/love of God for Christ who is His perfect "self-image" if you will. Christ is the perfect expression of the truth/word/understanding
of God and the Spirit is the perfect expression of the love/emotion/passion of God for himself as manifested in the Son. 

When the bible says God is love, it is also saying God is glorious. His being Spirit and glorious are primary ways of describing God as a being of love i.e. what makes God all glorious is because he is infinite love within himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, which overflows out to others like him i.e. us who are His image-bearers. 

The union/communion/relationship that exists between the Father and Son is one of love manifested in, by, and through the Spirit. 

In order to partake in this exchange of love within the Trinity, we had to be like God i.e. have a spirit or be spiritual. This means we had to have the capacity to receive the outpouring overflow of love between the Father and Son in and by the Spirit and reflect it back to Him and out to others (other image-bearers of God).

This dynamic of who God is and who we are is encapsulated in the 1st and 2nd commandment to love God with all we are and have and our neighbor as ourselves.

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*Though we are physical and our physicality is good and not bad, it is not the essence of our being. The body can be dead, but we live on. 

And the value of the body is confirmed because we, as His children, will be given new bodies once our "earthly" body dies. Nevertheless, our body is the vessel that contains or holds the essence of who we are as God's image-bearers and will be glorified when we are with Christ face to face. 

Having a body is good and so significant Christ took on a body and is in that body to this very day and will be throughout eternity. Granted it is a glorified body but so will ours be as well.

**For a further discussion of these distinctions within the Trinity click here. 

For a discussion of how we are empowered by the Spirit click here.

Matters of the mind or heart?

Matters of the heart and matters of faith go hand-in-hand. If one is present, the other will also be. When we take part in and engage God by faith, this is primarily an activity of our heart; of what we believe and trust to be true. 

This is in contrast to matters of the mind or understanding. We can clearly grasp something logically with our minds and even fully agree with it but not necessarily believe it in our hearts. To simply comprehend something does not mean we wholly and fully believe it, or "buy into it" as they say. When you do, that means you "put your money where your mouth is," or have "skin in the game" i.e. your beliefs require or cost you something because they result in action i.e. an investment of resources/time/energy.

Evidence that we fully believe something versus merely grasping it in our minds is action/obedience. When we truly believe something, we act on it. If we merely grasp or comprehend something -- even if we fully agree it is according to truth -- but do not take action, we do not truly believe it.

When presented with the truth, we can positively respond in two ways. We can agree it is true and we can believe it is true. When we agree, we are giving mental assent to something's truthfulness. When we believe it, we are acting on it and staking our resources/time/energy on its validity.

We cannot have the latter (faith) without the former (knowledge) but we can have the former without the latter.