When you’ve been burned here’s what I’ve learned

One afternoon, while visiting my daughter and her family, we talked a little about some people she knew who had served as missionaries in Hungary. I already knew the basics of the story: they had been sent to Hungary by a church and while there their doctrinal perspective changed. Their newly embraced viewpoint differed from that of the sending church and when this became known they were dismissed. In our talk that day I learn a few more details about this unfortunate incident.

The saddest thing about all this is the affect on some of those missionaries: out of the ministry, out of church, divorced, out of the faith, atheism. Our discussion began when I mentioned one of the men who went back to seminary, became a Presbyterian pastor and recently converted to Roman Catholicism – that was quite a journey! In saying all this, I’m not trying to run them down, this is just an overview of the fallout.

These folks feel like they got burned. Now, I don’t know these people, so I don’t know what was in their hearts. Nor was I privy to the secret counsels of the church they were part of. I think they understood that their doctrinal changes would result in some kind of disciplinary action. I don’t think that was the problem. I hope not, anyway. The problem seems to be how this was done, how they were treated. That was when they felt they got burned.

I understand that. I can sympathize. But . . .

What should you do when you’ve been burned? Been genuinely dealt with in an unjust, non-Christian way by a believer? by a church? by a Christian organization? How should you respond?

I confess, I can understand bitterness creeping in. It’s not right, but I can understand it. This is something that you have to guard your heart from, I mean, they “done you wrong.” If tolerated (or worse, fed), bitterness can become a root of bitterness and defile you in a variety of ways. This is like a sore or a wound - if untreated it can fester and cause all sorts of problems. The cure for this is forgiveness.

What I don’t understand is falling away from the Lord. Someone does you wrong, hurts you, offends you, let’s you down, sorely disappoints you and you leave the faith? Quit the Lord? I admit, I don’t understand that at all. Keith Green had a song that speaks to this:

And if you've been burned

Here's what I've learned

The Lord's not the one to blame *

Many years ago I learned a very helpful truth: No one else’s sin can take away my peace or joy or faith in Christ, only my own sin can do that. So, if someone does me wrong, hurts me, offends me, let’s me down, sorely disappoints me and I lose the peace of Christ, the joy of the Lord, or abandon the faith as a result, that’s on me. Somewhere in all that I sinned. I took a wrong turn or something was deficient in my spiritual life to begin with and this thing that happened simply exposed it.

I want to say again, I do not know the people I mentioned above, so it would be foolish of me to try and diagnose them from such a distance. I mentioned them as a specific example, I’ve known a lot of people who, when faced with similar circumstances or worse, such as the failure of a leader, just quit the faith. How utterly sad. Your Pastor falls and you now no longer believe in Jesus?? I have to wonder, Was their faith in Jesus or in their pastor/parents/church?

When you’ve been burned here’s what I’ve learned: Some one person, or some group of people may have failed you or hurt you etc. but that’s not Jesus. It’s not even all believers in Jesus! We need to learn to do as David did: David encouraged himself in the LORD his God and to believe as David believed: When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. Let the hurt, sorrow, disappointment, offence drive you closer to Jesus, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Amen.

So many laughing at Jesus

While the funniest thing that He's done

Is love this whole stubborn rebellious world

While their hate for Him just goes on *

* How can they live without Jesus by Keith Green