ACT 3: RELEASE (conclusion of Healing in 3 Acts)

Act 3.  RELEASE

Joseph, son of Israel, had been into a pit in the Middle Eastern sun, sold into slavery, taken to a foreign land, exploited, sexually assaulted, falsely imprisoned as a sex-offender, further exploited, and forgotten.    All of this because the men who should have mentored and protected, his own older brothers, had betrayed him. 

Now, in the closing chapters of the book of Genesis, Joseph was the 2^nd most powerful man in the Biblical world.  But the pain of his brothers’ treachery was a deep wound, infected with bitterness, and when those men showed up in Egypt the stitches burst and Joseph hurt all over again.

Either the pain of his past would consume him, or Joseph would have to heal. And so, Joseph son of Israel began a 3 part journey to healing.  I’ve recounted that journey is this blog series:  Healing in 3 Acts. 

Act 1:  LISTEN.   Hear the story your bullies/ tormentors/ haters/ enemies tell themselves about the hurt they did to you. 

Then they said to one another, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us.”

 And Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not speak to you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Therefore behold, his blood is now required of us.”

But they did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter.

And he turned himself away from them and wept. Then he returned to them again, and talked with them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes. (Genesis 42: 21-24).

Act 2:  WATCH. Look honestly at the present truth of who those people are now and who you now are. 

Judah said, “Now therefore, please let [me] remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad [Benjamin] go up with his brothers. For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me, lest perhaps I see the evil that would come upon my father?” (Genesis 44: 33-34)

. . . ⁴ And Joseph said to his brothers, . . . “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. . .  ⁷ And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. ⁸ So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45: 4-8)

And now, the 3^rd stage of the story of healing from old spiritual wounds.

ACT 3: RELEASE. 

You are carrying an emotional ledger with all the debts they owe you for what they did to you.  That account keeps them tied to you and you chained to them continually returning to that old hurt to collect a debt that ---- when you see the whole truth ---- they can NEVER repay.   There may be legal or social justice for their crimes, but no ruling will release you from the connection your soul keeps retying to those memories.  

Only you can release you.

And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:19).

The key is truth. Turn the key. 

You know the truth, as best you can, of the past:  from your perspective and from theirs--- the whole truth.  You see the reality of the present truth for them and for yourself.  It is truth that set you free, but possessing the key isn’t enough.  You have to exert the strength to turn the key and open the chains.

With the truth secure, release yourself by releasing them.  

Jesus said: “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11: 25).

Forgive them.

When, knowing the truth you grant forgiveness to those who wronged you, you receive release from the spiritual chains that hold you in anger and unforgiveness of yourself.

You need to forgive them, but that doesn’t mean you have to trust them.

We say “forgive and forget” but that’s not a logical pairing.  A healthy mind doesn’t just lose memories.  

What we really mean is “forgive and TRUST.”  It’s not as catchy a phrase without the alliteration, but that’s what we really mean.  Forgive them for what they did and then trust them as if they’d never done it.  Trust them all over again as if you had forgotten what they did.

You can forgive and trust as if you’d forgiven and forgotten.  You can, but the Bible doesn’t say you have to.

God commands forgiveness.  God commands generosity and helpfulness toward those who wronged you.  But God doesn’t command you to pretend the wrong never happened.

Nope.  No.

Joseph forgave his older brothers.  He forgave them and gave them good land in Goshen on the eastern border of Egypt. 

You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near to me, you and your children, your children’s children, your flocks and your herds, and all that you have (Genesis 45:9-10).

He forgave them and got them good jobs as Pharaoh’s personal shepherds.

⁵ Then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. ⁶ The land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock” (Genesis 47:1-10).

He forgave them and fed them during the famine. 

Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with bread, according to the number in their families (Genesis 47: 12).

He forgave them and continued to bless them with the favor of Egypt even after their father died.    He forgave, but he didn’t pretend to forget what they had done.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.”

. . .  Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? ²⁰ But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. ²¹ Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them (Genesis 50: 15-21).

Forgiveness honors the truth.  Maybe the truth is you can trust them now.  And maybe the truth is: you will do all you can to help them lead a good life, but they can’t move back in with you.  So, forgive that dude who robbed you.  Help him find a legitimate job.  But maybe don’t recommend him for a cashier position, and don’t feel obligated to  share the code to your security system.

RELEASE yourself from bitterness. 

RELEASE yourself from the side of the old grudge you’re still holding up.

RELEASE yourself from the hold the old hurt has on you by forgiveness those who hurt you.  RELEASE yourself from the un-Biblical and irrational guilt over remembering.

RELEASE yourself so that the memory no longer hold power over you because you gave granted forgiveness in the full light of the truth of what was and what is.

LISTEN.  WATCH.  RELEASE.

Compose a new story for yourself.  Live the narrative that includes closure.  Be the protagonist who used to be afflicted with guilt but now is healed and whole.  Be the prisoner of pain who has been liberated.  Reject the old role of victim to the villains from your past.  Re-cast yourself.

Be the hero of your own story.

That’s how healing happened for Joseph.

That’s how healing can happen for you.

   

--Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

ACT 2: WATCH

Blogging Genesis 42-44

 

Spiritual healing is a story of emancipation.  It is the process of becoming free from old hurt.

Jesus, quoting Isaiah, used the language of healing and liberation as if the two were synonymous. 

 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

Because He has anointed Me

To preach the gospel to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”  (Luke 4: 18, 19)

Imagine your emotional pain as a chain locked around your legs. 

You need the key, and the key is the TRUTH. 

If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (Jesus, John 8:31, 32).

This is why so much of successful psycho-therapy involves inquiry into the past.   The unique key to your psycho-spiritual shackles is “your truth.” YOUR truth is the truth of the specific trauma that wounded you.  That truth is (as all truths are) a story, a story told in 3 acts.

The 1^st Act is LISTENING.  Insane as it may sound, listen to the people who hurt you.  Hear  what they think about what they did.  That is their “truth.”  Joseph heard remorse in his brothers’ candid confessions.  What you hear may surprise you and grant you some relief. 

It’s at least equally likely, though, that your tormentors’ truth won’t be comforting.  Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing.  Maybe they thought they had no other choice.  Maybe, they thought hurting you was hilarious and they never cared about your feelings.   The key to healing isn’t comfort.  The key is truth.

Listen to their truth and listen to your own.   Weave their story together with yours, and, though the perspectives conflict with each other, you’ll be a third of the way to healing.   

Act  1:  Listen.

ACT 2:  WATCH.

Listening is about past truth.  Watching is about the present. 

Look at your life and at the life of your offendors. Don’t assume that they are just like they were nor that they have changed.  See the truth of them and you as you are now.

In Genesis chapters 42-44, Joseph observed his brothers.  He watched Simeon, waiting in Egyptian custody.  He noticed how his brothers dealt with having their grain money mysteriously reappear in their bags (Genesis 42:25 – 28).  Joseph saw how they kept the difficult promise to bring Benjamin with them when they came back to Egypt.  Joseph saw that his brothers were now honorable men who took good care of their dad and who would give up their own lives to save their baby brother.

Joseph saw that they were not now who they used to be.

Present truth isn’t always pleasant as what Joseph saw.  But, it is truth, not pleasantries, that will set you free.

The truth of them and the truth of you.

The length, breadth, depth, and reach of your world has changed.  The people and things that dominated your life then do not occupy the same space in your now.  Let go of the “I’ve always been” and “I’ve never been able to” and just LOOK at you now. 

Joseph wasn’t still the arrogant teen tattle-tale.  He wasn’t just a little brother.  He was more than a spoiled son.  He wasn’t a slave or a prisoner.  Even his dreams were different.  He used to dream of making his family bow down before him.  Now his ambition was to fulfill his God-given purpose and save his family.

The old hurt sat very small on the state of his present truth.

Your world now is NOT defined by what they did to you.  You may feel like it is.  You may act like it is.  But it isn’t.  Look around.  See how much more exists, how much more is possible.  You may not see it yet.  That’s O.K.

Watch.  You will. 

--Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

Healing in 3 Acts: ACT 1

 Blogging Genesis 42-44

ACT 1: LISTENING

[SHOUT OUT:  I'd been blogging through the book of Genesis but some weeks ago I hit a block. Actually, it was more like falling into a well.  I was drowning in thoughts about the story of Joseph and his interaction with his brothers.  So many ideas that every blog draft came out a 10 page paper.  In those weeks of rewriting and overthinking, my cousin Tiffany Williams started posting about healing.  Tiffany is an actress, scholar, entrepreneur, and all around awesome woman; and her posts helped me order my thoughts into a 3-part series within my blogging Genesis series.
So, shout out to my lil' cuz!
You inspire us all.

Now.  Read my blog.]

Genesis 42. Crops the last 2 years had been so miserable that a loaf of bread was rarer than gold.   If not for their stash of dates and almonds, Jacob’s entire clan might have starved.  

So, when Jacob (aka Israel) learned that the Egyptians had warehouses full of grain, he called all of his sons and told them the news.  They didn’t believe it.  Or, maybe that didn’t trust each other so they were trying to plot out which brother would go to Egypt and which would stay behind.  Either way, their hesitation got on Jacob’s nerves and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another; . . . go down to that place and buy for us there, that we may live and not die.” (Genesis 42:1-2)

In Egypt the 10 oldest sons of Israel met Zaphnath-Paaneah (Genesis 41:45), the handsome, rich, and powerful “Egyptian” in charge of grain distribution. 

They fell on their knees before him and then Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them . . . (Genesis 41:9).

The Lord had delivered his enemies into his hands.  He could throw THEM into a pit.  He could sell THEM into slavery.

Now, I know that the Sunday School-VBS version of the story is that Joseph saw his brothers and forgave them, but the real life version told in the actual Bible is more complicated.

Joseph was rich, successful, and powerful.  Every day he saved lives and grew richer with every life he saved.  Meanwhile his brothers were starving to death in Canaan.  Joseph had won.

Joseph had won, but he was still wounded.  And he might not have known it until he saw his brother again, but, success had not healed his trauma. 

The stitches on Joseph’s emotional wounds broke and anger bled out. 

Hitting all your career benchmarks doesn’t fill the void in your soul.  Even seeing your childhood dream manifest may not be enough  to erase the scars on your spirit from what they did to you.

Joseph didn’t respond to his brothers with compassion.  He reacted with vengance and deception.    He charged his brothers with espionage, which typically carries the death penalty.   

Jospeh said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see the nakedness of the land!”

And they said to him, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. We are all one man’s sons; we are honest men; your servants are not spies” (Genesis 41:9-11).

“Honest?!” Joseph thought.  “Do honest men attack their little brother like a band of thieves falling on a traveler?  Do honest men toss him into a pit where he simultaneously languishes in darkness at the bottom, roasts in the heat of the sun-baked walls of the well, and half-drowns every  few seconds from sinking in the miry clay around the fountain head pouring water up up to his feet, his waist,  threatening every moment to rise above his head, all while listening to the echoing voices of his own brothers laugh and debating how to cover up his murder? 

“Is that,” silently seethed the 2^nd most powerful man in Egypt “what ‘honest’ men do?”

But he said to them, “No, but you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”

And they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and in fact, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no more.”

But Joseph said to them, “It is as I spoke to you, saying, ‘You are spies!’ (Genesis42:12-16).

“Prove it,” demanded the prime minister of Egypt. “Bring me this alleged little brother living with your so-called ‘father.’ But let me give you some time to think about it.”

So he put them all together in prison three days (Genesis42:17).

Ahh!  Sweet revenge!

Then Joseph said to them the third day, “Do this and live, for I fear God: If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison house; but you, go and carry grain for the famine of your houses.

And bring your youngest brother to me; so your words will be verified, and you shall not die.”

And they did so.

Joseph---- sweet, compassionate, save-everybody-from-famine,  what-you-meant-for-evil-God-meant-for-good, Joseph ---- was gonna rescue his baby brother and then extract 15 years of payback from the rest of his siblings.

But then, Joseph started listening.

His brothers didn’t know who he was.  They thought he didn’t understand their language.  So the conversation he overheard was completely honest.   Joseph learned that they were

genuinely sorry for what they’d done to him.   Joseph heard them talk about their daily guilt over betraying him.  He heard them accept every past and present misfortunes divine punishment for crimes against the brother they didn’t know was hearing their confession.

Then they said to one another, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us” (Genesis 42: 21).

Joseph listened and learned that their betrayal hadn’t been unanimous.

And Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not speak to you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen?”

Joseph listened and learned that they hadn’t come looking for him because they honestly thought he was dead.

“Therefore behold, his blood is now required of us” (Genesis 42: 22).

Joseph listened and his hatred began seeping away, and he turned himself away from them and wept (Genesis 42:24).  Those tears marked the beginning of his healing. 

Hurt narrows our vision and stops our ears, but if you’re going to heal, you have to open yourself up to see and to listen. 

I hear you saying, “I don’t need to hear any more.”

But look at it like this:  If all that you know isn’t enough to give you peace, then maybe you need to know more.    Maybe what you won’t hear remorse.  Maybe you won’t hear guilt and confession from those who hurt you.  Maybe you and they will never reconcile.   

But maybe you hear enough to finally get free.

Joseph didn’t go to his brothers and beg them to talk it out with him.   He didn’t cry in front of them (at first), and he didn’t lead with a group hug. 

In the first act, Joseph just listened and focused on healing himself.

Your job isn’t to relieve their guilt or to grant them closure. 

Listen TO them, but listen FOR you. 

Healing is a 3-Act play. 

Stay tuned for the 2^nd act. 

--Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 3506

A BLESSING FOR THE GATEKEEPERS

Long ago a man of God rebelled against his fellowship and split the church of his day.   In a spectacular display of Divine wrath, God destroyed the spiritual mutineers.  Generations later, the Lord used a great king to redeem the descendants of that disgraced rebel.  And that is why churches have ushers.

Learn the whole story and how what happens at the doors of the church affects every one of us every day.

The sermon is about: A BLESSING FOR THE GATEKEEPERS.

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064