Take Courage, Trauma-Based Life vs Triumph-Based Life
There seems to be a growing divide among the mentally healthy and the unhealthy. And we have all learned the principle of our health being a derivative of the prosperity of our soul (3 John 2). Part of the cause for that widening chasm is how our destructive media and social influencers fawn and affirm the broken, nearly casting them as the ideal way of life. The more disturbed and dysfunctional one becomes the more attention seemingly is lavished on them to almost promote their behaviors and attitudes as preferable.
I am, in no way, trying to downplay or minimize the pain or sincere struggle associated with genuine trauma inflicted upon a person. It just breaks my heart to see our culture glorify the broken. When you venerate an evil perpetrated upon a person by praising them for the debilitating effects that that trauma causes, you will entrap that person in that slavish prison with no hope of ever escaping. They cannot try to escape because they are adored for their brokenness, so they just settle into their prison and look for opportunities to find more affirmation.
They have built their life around their trauma, and society gave them the bricks.
There is no opportunity for healing because their identity is in their pain:
- The person abused becomes an abused person (identity)
- The person with an addiction becomes an addict (identity)
- The person who has made mistakes becomes a failure (identity)
- The oppressed person becomes a person with depression (identity)
- The person who has failed at relationships becomes a lonely person (identity)
Their identity is in their trauma… they have a trauma-based life.
These people will attract tyrants who will continue to oppress them, ‘For their own good.’ They will build support groups that help them ‘manage’ their trauma. They will seek out other traumatized folks to fill their relational circles. The self-righteous despots will prey on these victims believing the moans of pain to be an incentive.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity [greed] may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of Earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
Our good friend C.S. Lewis strikes again with impeccable verbal accuracy.
A person with a trauma-based life attracts tyranny, subjugation, maltreatment, misery, and the company it loves. But, we are called to be different…
“Look, an hour is coming and has already come when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and you will leave Me all alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”
John 16:32-33 BSB
Jesus overcame more trauma than any other person ever. (Ever is a God word.)
Jesus gave up more than any of us could fully grasp. He was God, fully God, omnipotent God, omnipresent God, omniscient God, forever into the past before there was even time to count how long. He traded that for love of you and me. Not only that, but He knew we would reject, devalue, ridicule, mock, rebel, and even scorn Him and the salvation He purchased with His own life and blood. Just because we were doing life our way and did not want His “stupid Christianity” to come in and muck up all the awesome fun we were having in our self-made faux-paradise. Jesus traded divinity for humanity because of love for those who hated Him forever and for those who only hated Him temporarily.
“For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:6-8 BSB
Jesus said in the John passage that this world WILL HAVE tribulation.
Thlípsis (Greek word for ’tribulation’) – properly, pressure (what constricts or rubs together), used of a narrow place that “hems someone in”; tribulation, especially internal pressure that causes someone to feel confined (restricted, “without options”). “Compression, tribulation” carries the challenge of coping with the internal pressure of a tribulation, especially when feeling there is “no way of escape” (“hemmed in”).
Trauma and tribulation are promised to us (by Jesus, nonetheless) as a universal earthly experience. Worst. Promise. Ever! The difference between a defeated person and an overcomer is their response. Jesus took courage and faced Golgotha (The Place of the Skull) with resolve, grit, and unshakeable faith in His Father’s covenant. We have His nature in us; therefore, we have access to the same assets to overcome the way He overcame.
This boils down to a fight between these two: Trauma-Based Life vs. Triumph-Based Life.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39 BSB
These are like the refrigerator scriptures of all refrigerator scriptures. I want to point out a few truths about what makes a Triumpth-Based Life conquer the tribulation and a Trauma-Based Life popularized in modernity.
- The first point to notice is that the purpose of the trauma and tribulation is to ‘separate’ us from the love of Christ. It is NOT capable of stopping Christ’s love for us, and so the only other option is to separate us from it. What causes the separation is the objects and distance that slither between us and Christ. That pain you carry can create a barrier that distances you from His love. “If God really loved me why did He let _____ happen!?”
- This thought is reinforced by the quotation from Psalm 44:22 where the attitude of the Psalmist is one of implicating God… as if the problems were only a result of them being God’s people… innocent victims. I could likely argue that point and show the nation’s (and individual’s) culpability for their consequences, but let us assume he is right, for discussion purposes. Whoever promised it would be rainbows, butterflies, and pixie dust as a servant of the Most High God? Interestingly, God answers the lamentable discourse by fulfilling verse 26 (ESV) which says, “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” That Psalm was answered in the steadfast love of Jesus Christ powerfully by His resurrection (Rise up…), bringing divine help and eternal redemption through the atonement.
- In all THESE things, we are MORE than conquerors. The ‘these things’ are the traumas and tribulations that try to separate us from His love and the victimization of an evil world with wicked weapons: “trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.” Remember the original audience of these words. They were Romans. Roman citizens knew a little bit about conquering… they actually conquered the entire known world and brought all of those vanquished peoples/nations into slavery and submission. This audience heard the words ‘more than conquerors’ and it meant something special to them. It should be to us as well.
- There is something very important missing from the list at the end of the passage. Look closely and you will notice that an entire tense of time is missing. Paul said that “neither the present nor the future” can separate us from God’s love… BUT he did NOT write anything about the PAST. I believe the reason it is purposefully omitted is that one can choose to let their past, their trauma, and their memories of pain become so powerful that they allow the PAST to distance them from intimacy with God through the Love of Christ. This is a person living in a Trauma-Based Life. If you compare that to the rest of the list, it means that the past can be stronger than death, angels, principalities, powers, and any other thing in all of creation. Whoa…
The other day I was meditating on some of Jesus’ words from John 13-17where He was repeatedly exhorting the guys that hard times were a-coming. And boy did they come. All eleven of the faithful disciples would eventually be martyred and many of them tortured to death for their allegiance. While I was meditating on these truths, I had the revelation that the cause of their persecution, tribulation, trauma, torture, and eventual murder was… Jesus. Peter could have totally stomped off in arrogant rejection of this crazy preacher with His strong, offensive words. He would likely have lived a fairly long-ish life. Had kids with his wife. Had a somewhat successful fishing company. Kept his head down and his nose clean from the Roman occupation and had an ‘average,’ normal life without torturous death. But, Jesus messed all that up… and He knew exactly what He was doing.
Paul said it very clearly right here in Romans chapter 8 in the 18th verse:
“I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Jesus knew that the New Birth, undying loyalty to Him, and living in righteous resolve would create temporary trauma, but He ALSO knew that eternity was much longer and MUCH better if we chose Him. He knows every tear we cry, and they uniquely touch His heart. He also knows (so much better than we do) the untapped power available to us through His Spirit and His love. If we knew what He knew, there would be a victory song on our lips.
The song of redemption.
The song of freedom.
The song of gratitude.
Beloved, our redemption draws nigh, the Great Awakening is expanding, and the Best Is Yet To Come!
I love you,
Steve
