10.12.2014 Dealing with Feelings of Abandonment or Betrayal

8.12.2014 from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

SermonAudio

I am going to repeat everything Melissa said – but I’ll throw in a bunch of verses – that turns it into a sermon, I guess.
Abandonment and betrayal go hand in hand. Everyone has experienced this.
Children of divorce – there are books out there – but that is not the only way we feel abandoned.
Having an absent parent – it might be for good reason – to make ends meet, one might have to work a lot and be unable to be there.
Maybe it is death.
Maybe a parent is emotionally absent.
Favoritism in a family will produce feelings of abandonment and betrayal.
Health issues.
Rejection – real or perceived. It happens to adults when affairs happen.
It might be the feeling of being abandoned by a best friend.
It might be by the church – I know a lot of people who felt abandoned by a church.
Maybe it is in a job.
It can happen in a nation. Like the Vietnam vets.
Think of the Jews in Nazi Germany – abandoned by the world.
In sharing – I’d like to share some practical things.
If you struggle in relationships – there is probably some of this going on.
Unable to trust people. Generally, you should be able to trust people. Maybe it is a fear of intimacy or approval addiction. Feelings of being cheated in life. Cheated of a childhood or a job or this or that.
Emotional instability – swings in emotions
Anger – Melissa mentioned – and this is the symptom most associated with this.
Insecurity
Living a legalistic life – rigid rules. –
These are signs of abandonment.
Melissa realized there was something causing this problem. When something is not working – there must be something causing it to be that way.
When relationships – other areas – habits – emotions – things we don’t like about ourselves, we need to be honest and say there is a reason for this in me.
I have some practical steps – but this is not going to be professional therapeutic counseling – If you have experienced severe trauma in this area, you may need that. But I think many people can deal with this through Biblical advice.
What do you do? Five principles. First, focus on the Truth of God.
Hebrews 13:5 “I will never leave you and I will never abandon you”
That is step 1 – God will never abandon you.
Back to what Melissa said – there is always a traumatic event – a divorce, an illness, death – that traumatic event will cause wounds, and those wounds are filled with lies, and those lies will shape our view about God – even if the lie is about another person.
The issue is to bring the truth about God in the Bible into your life and then believe that – Fill the wound with the TRUTH. For this issue – it is believing that He will never leave you nor abandon you.
We want to be transformed into the image of Christ. Not to be holy and wear sandals, but to have the kind of life that Christ offers. That good life – the exceptional life. It is not a law that you have to be like Jesus – if you do that, you will get so discouraged. It must be viewed as an opportunity that God provides for you. That is the best way to be. We want to turn everything into law – into rule – into command. Teaching them to do all that I’ve commanded you – not Teaching them that they OUGHT to do all that I’ve commanded you! Jesus gave life, not commands. The only command He gave was to love one another. Don’t view it as command and law, but as life, power and availability.
It is an easy yoke –not heavy.
I have given out spiritual disciplines – things that bring us life – for this one – I encourage you to practice the discipline of memorizing scripture. If you never have, I encourage you to start a process.
With memorizing scripture, this can produce guilt – and if it produces guilt – it is not a good discipline. Don’t try to memorize the book of Genesis or Numbers – instead – find verses about the area you are struggling with and bring that into your life in the circumstances, events, and difficulties you are having so you can believe the truth about God.
You might say, I did that in college. Well, I did that in college – and it is clear that we will not experience transformation apart from His word. Jesus IS the Word – and He uses His word to transform us. Start with ONE. You don’t have to memorize the whole verse – Hebrews 13:5b – and when you are feeling abandoned or alone – Jesus takes that word and uses it to transform us. God’s word is living and active and works in us.
If your issue is anger, find the verses on anger and bring those verses into the situation.
Psalm 27: 9 Do not reject me!
Do not push your servant away in anger!
You are my deliverer!
Do not forsake or abandon me,
O God who vindicates me!
10 Even if my father and mother abandoned me,
the Lord would take me in.

What a great verse for a child who feels abandoned by parents.
You could even memorize this and make it a prayer – that is what it is.
What a work that will do inside of you.
It is really that simple – It is not that easy, but it is that simple.
When we trust in God and bring His word to bear on our circumstances and struggles – it transforms us. But it maybe something you struggle with the rest of your life.
Psalm 94:14 Certainly the Lord does not forsake his people;
he does not abandon His special possession.
You are God’s special possession – His treasure. Do you have any treasures at home? What do you do with it? How do you take care of it? That thing – you guard it – you make sure it is safe – you put it somewhere it can’t be ruined. That is how God is with us. We are His special treasure. You are something that He is going to make sure is taken care of.

Isaiah 49:14-16 NIV
But Zion said, "The lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.
He takes the closest human bond – a mother with her baby – and He says – it is possible for a mother to forget her nursing baby – to abandon her baby – but it is impossible for God to ever abandon us.
It is just not who He is. He is incapable of forgetting you, or forsaking you – or abandoning you. It would go against everything that He is.
Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
This is the prayer of Jesus on the cross. You see, there are two things – 1 – there are different theological understandings of what this means – I won’t talk about that. But from His human experience, Jesus felt a sense of abandonment and betrayal. As you feel it, you can be sure that Jesus has gone through that. – And He expresses it on the cross – My God, My God, why have you abandoned me. He was abandoned by His friends – He was betrayed by a close friend. He was abandoned by His nation. Crucified, He was abandoned by the world – the Roman empire.
Hebrews 4: 15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
He can relate to what you are going through, or have gone through – because He has gone through it. He won’t just tell you, just get over it – instead, He will understand, sympathize with you – and then give you grace and power to deal with what is going on in your life.
Psalm 13: 13 How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 And my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
Even though the Bible says He will never abandon you – sometimes it feels like He has. This psalm tells us what to do – when you feel like God has abandoned you – you need to be honest with God about how you feel. There is a deep sense – a raw honesty that comes out in Scripture – about peoples’ feelings and relationships with God.
At the end of the Psalm – I trust; He has been good.
It is only when we engage honestly about how things appear to us – that we are able, from that honesty – that God is able to bring us to a clear understanding of who He is.
If you don’t deal with it – you won’t come to that conclusion. It is not spiritual to cover and hide your honest feelings before God. It is not a sigh of maturity; it is a sign of immaturity when you do that.
The first step is bringing the truth in.
The second step – we need to go back to go forward. We need to address the event – to embrace our history – and then to bring Jesus into the event. To understand that whatever happened – God saw it and He was there when it happened. And beyond that – He took that pain – that sin that was committed against you – and He took it on the cross. He bore your sin – and the sins that were committed against you on the cross. He experienced your pain and suffering. The very hurt that you have gone through – He experienced at the cross –
Third – tell your story –
1 John 1: 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
This tells us that our relationships are to be open. We don’t just tell our story to anyone – but to someone we feel safe with. You must trust the person and it must be someone who has demonstrated that he is a safe person to talk to.
We cannot do it on our own. We cannot become the people God wants us to become without connecting intimately in community – it is that clear – it can only happen in those close relationships.
Here are some things in telling your story.
When you think through it – identify the evil that happened to you. Very specifically - you need to name it.
When Joseph met his brothers – He didn’t say – aww, forget it – instead – he said – you meant it for evil. We need to name it.
Then we need to introduce God into the story and see how He fits in.
In that Isaiah passage – the next verse – behold, I have inscribed you on the palm of My hands. I have written your name on My hands. We see God in a whole new light in that event. God CAN’T forget me – he has written my name on His hands. It is there as a continual reminder.
Deal with your anger! Anger is the default emotion – especially in this area –
Be angry, and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on the cause of your anger.
First – understand the source. It may come from abandonment or betrayal. Second – we need to grieve our loss – and to do that – we need to identify what was lost – what was lost because of the betrayal? Maybe it was a job. Maybe it was your childhood because you had to be an adult at the age of six.
When someone we love dies, we know what was lost. But when you experience abandonment and betrayal, we don’t often know what we lost because of it. We need to be able to identify it.
We need to be able to acknowledge and understand our level of pain. Like in the hospital – what is your pain level?
And then – take it all and place it at the cross – understand that God took care of things there.
Open your bible – we’ll close with this.
2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our lord and savior Jesus Christ – to Him be the glory both now and through eternity.
If we want our lives to be transformed, we must grow in grace. Yes, by His grace you are saved – that is how we receive eternal life – but grace is so much more than that.
Grace is something we must grow in – it is also God’s power and activity in our lives to help us do what we cannot do on our own.
Changing in an area like this – will not happen on your own. We are unable to change anything significantly about ourselves on our own.
Effort and willpower will not do anything significant – you will only see surface things. To see inner transformation – you must have help.
Again – memorize verses and bring them into the area you struggle – and when you do that, you unleash God’s power in your life. This is not to discourage you – it is to help. If you don’t want to memorize verses – FINE! Keep struggling! It is your decision!
We must get to the point we are sick of it – and then go to the answer.
Thank You, God for Melissa’s words – and there is truth – You will never leave us, abandon us – or forsake us – we are your special treasure.