Live through the down times and remember the up times

Have you heard the term “Selective Memory” used when referring to someone who only seems to be able to recall those events that he or she wants to recall? Usually, it is used derisively to indicate the person is using it as an excuse for not doing something.

Usually, that is the case.

However, I know people who choose to remember only those things that continue to generate frustration and anger, and by doing so don’t even allow themselves to relive the pleasant times in their life.

For instance, in my previous life, from 1984 to 1992 I was married to a woman, we had two children (whom she has successfully turned against me) and for the last 6 or 7 years of our marriage all we did was argue. Yet, I recall many enjoyable moments, before and during the bad times; I know what was bad in that marriage, yet I choose to remember the good times and allow the bad times to remain in the background. This form of selective memory, recalling the pleasant times we had together, allows me to experience joy when I recall them. She, on the other hand, not only had chosen to recall all the bad times, but greatly embellished some of them over the years so that all she felt was pain and anger regarding me. So much so that even a normal, civil conversation was not possible for her. Once my son was old enough to take a train from their house in Queens (NY) and meet me in Manhattan (my daughter had already cut me off), I was able to disconnect from my “ex”, totally. That was a number of years ago, yet I still pray for her because I don’t know anyone who needs the love of the Lord as much as that poor, pitiful and unforgiving woman who causes herself continual pain by her selective memory.

The reason I told you about this is not to complain about her, or appear to put myself in a position of “holier-than-her”, but only as a personal example of how much better it is to selectively remember only the best parts of a relationship. And let me confess this now: I have not done this well. It took me many, many years (as my wife will confirm) just to be able to not talk about it all the time, and even today I am still fighting to not dwell on the loss of my children. I have prayer and God to help, and I am relieved to say I am getting better at not dwelling on it.

If you have had someone hurt you, and have forgiven them (as we are commanded to do), you should be able to remember the good aspects of that relationship without having to refuel the fires of hurtfulness that the sin against you caused. And, if you haven’t forgiven them, it’s about time you got with the program!

Forgiving is not forgetting, as much as it is letting go of the pain and anger. Because I have forgiven I can remember many fun times with my “ex”; our honeymoon was absolutely wonderful, we had some road trips that were great, the times we spent in the Pocono’s at a timeshare were relaxing and so much fun. I also remember there was that one vacation straight from hell, and many times during the marriage I wanted to leave. There were even times I wanted to commit suicide instead of going home. Really- it was that bad. But I now choose to leave those memories alone, and try to recall only the happy times because, well… why dwell on bad times and relive the hurt when you can remember happy times and feel good?

BTW: if you choose to relive the hurt someone caused you, it is not their fault that you are in pain. Yes, they may have struck the “first blow”, but if you choose to relive that event, over and over, now the pain you feel when reliving it is your own fault.

Of course, if someone is unforgiving, for them to relive only the happy times is probably not going to be possible. No one who is unforgiving will want to let go of their pain and sorrow, so they rip the scab off the cut every time it starts to heal. If you ask me, that’s a horrible way to live. It is so much better to remember happy times- don’t you agree?

Look- we all have bad times, and we all will remember them, but the idea is to live through the bad times and then put them behind you so you can recall only the happy times and let them fill you with joy. When loved ones pass away, we should celebrate their lives and recall all the joy they brought us; when we have marriage problems we cannot solve, we should part as people recalling that once we were able to share a love and to allow that to be the start of a new relationship. Once divorced, the marriage is dead, so we are free to begin a new relationship based on what first brought us together. And if the relationship is so damaged that it cannot continue, for whatever reason, then individually relive the happy times and remember only that what you had was a blessing while it was good. All things change, but all people do not change together.

Selective memory should not be used as an excuse for irresponsibility, but should be a means of recalling the joy we found in relationships that are no longer able to be that way. If you can recall only the happy times, you will be a happier person.

Aspirin for the Soul

Is there anyone out there without some level of pain in their soul? I know the pain of missing my children, who have been torn from me by a hateful and unforgiving mother I divorced nearly a quarter of a century ago. I visited the children every weekend for the first couple of years (I lived a 1 1/2 hour drive away, if there was no NY traffic. And there’s no such thing as “no traffic” when talking about New York City), took them to the beach, to parks, to movies. I spent money I didn’t have at first, and when I did have money, I spent more of it on them. I did all I could to teach them to be self-aware, considerate and able to get along with others. It was all against what their mother had taught them, which was that they are the center of everything, they are just children so they aren’t responsible for themselves; if they have a reason ‘why’ that is a valid excuse so they don’t have to be responsible for what they do, don’t do, say or don’t say. And as soon as they reached majority, even though we still sent them money, they decided that they didn’t need to have me in their lives anymore. I was treating them as adults, not excusing them, and trying to get them to see how what they had been taught would make them outcasts. So I became the outcast.

It hurts. It has been nearly 4 years since my son disowned me, and about 7 for my daughter. She will be 29 next month, and he will be 24 in October. I still send them birthday cards, remind them how much I miss them and still love them, and ask for reconciliation. At whatever level they are comfortable with. I don’t know what is going on in their lives, and what really kills me is that I know, without a doubt, that if (God forbid) something serious happened, or even if they died, their mother wouldn’t even tell me.

That’s my biggest hurt, and it is a big one, isn’t it? Yet I go on. I don’t mope, I don’t complain (well, not nearly as much as I used to) and I tell you this now only to demonstrate that there is hope for those who have this kind of hurt.

It is the hope we have in Messiah, the knowledge that God loves everyone, and in the power of prayer.

I pray for my children, and I pray for their mother. Yes, I do, and I mean it, which surprised me more than anyone when I started doing it. That is the aspirin for our soul- forgiveness. The pain of being hurt is never going to go away if we review it, rehearse what we want to say to the person who has hurt us, and refuse to accept that they must be hurting, inside, even more than they hurt us to do such a terrible thing. That’s what really got me on the right track- when I thought about the pain she was going through, the hurt, the feeling of desertion and rejection, which is what I was doing. Yes- I was leaving her. I had many, many good reasons for doing that, and even though I was no longer in love with her, I still waited for two years before divorcing her, legally. That was time for her to do T’shuvah, to turn from her prideful hatred and decide which was more important- the marriage or her pridefulness.

We all know what decision she made.

So, what did I have left except the pain? I had more pain to come- constant berating by her every time I visited, my children repeating the foul accusations she made against me and my parents to my face when I was with them, and many other atrocities.

I am so grateful to God and the Ruach HaKodesh for teaching me that the only way to overcome the pain of this situation was to pray for them and forgive them, only after doing that could I ask His forgiveness for them.

Oh, now- don’t get the wrong idea. This wasn’t something that came to me right away: it took years and years for me to get to the point where I didn’t talk about it all the time to anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot. Then it took years after I was saved for me to realize that forgiveness was the only way to relieve the pain. The pain persists, so long as the reason for it persists, but forgiveness and prayer is how I deaden and dull the pain. It is my hope for the future and my trust in God to do all He will to help turn my children back to me (although I know that it has to be their decision), and when I think of the pain and suffering that her hatefulness has caused her, all her life, I can’t help but feel pity for my “ex”.  No matter how much she has hurt me, I have God and the promise of eternal joy to look forward to. When I think of what she has to look forward to, how can I not pity her and pray for her salvation?

Even Ebeneezer Scrooge would have removed some of the chain that Jacob Marley had to wear, if he could have.

Forgiveness is the only way to stop the pain that we have when someone hurts us.

Proverbs tells us to feed and give water to our enemies, David showed respect and forgiveness to King Saul, sparing his life even though he was trying to take David’s; Yeshua tells us to leave our gift at the alter if there is any animosity between us and someone else, and also that we should love our enemies.

And Yeshua also tells us, in Matthew 6:14-15, that if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven. That’s a hard word to hear, but it is essential we understand it. Forgiveness has nothing to do, really, with the person we forgive, and everything to do with our relationship with God. When anyone sins it is, first and foremost, a sin against God. David knew that and says so in Psalm 51. The person who sins against another is sinning against God. That needs to be worked out between them, and nothing we do will make much of a difference. God will not forgive them if they do not ask for it, no matter how often we ask for it.

So, then ,why should we ask for their forgiveness? Because it is important to maintain our proper relationship with God, that’s why. Because we need to forgive them to stop the pain, that’s why. Because we are commanded to forgive, that’s why!

To err is human; to forgive, divine. That is a truth that is not written in the bible, but is exactly what the bible teaches us.

We all have some pain- how can we possibly avoid it living in a cursed world?  So what? Pain is part of life: for a headache we take aspirin, for a backache we take Ibuprofen, and for the heartache of being sinned against, we take a daily dose of prayer with a glassful of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is aspirin for your soul, and prayer is the way to administer it. Pray for those who hate you, forgive those who sin against you, and you will survive the pain.

And besides that, you will please God, who will bless you for your obedience.

That’s a pretty good remedy: you forgive, which relieves the pain, and then you receive blessings from God.

 

Parashah Chaazinu (Hear), Deuteronomy 32

This chapter of the Torah is known as “The Song of Moses”, which is really the second song of Moses, since he also sang of God’s great triumph after the people crossed the Sea of Suf (Red Sea.)

Moses also gave us Psalm 90.

The Torah is called the Mosaic Law, but it really was given to Moses by God; Moses just wrote it down and taught it to the people. This song, I believe we can safely say, was also given by God to Moses to write down because we read in the previous parashah where God tells Moses to “write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel” (Deut. 31:19.) It seems pretty clear that God gave the song to Moses since He said to write this song: if God had wanted Moses to write a song He would have said, ” write a song”, or “make a song” for them to remember, or something to that effect. However, God said to write this song, implying that the song was already known to God and that Moses was to take dictation.

In any event, the song is supposed to be a conviction of the people- they are to remember it so that when they stray from God and He brings upon them the destruction and Tsouris that they have (really) brought upon themselves, this song will be a testimony for God- a reminder that the people were warned years, even centuries before about the cost of rebellion against their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their Rock, their Redeemer, their Salvation. That was the purpose of the song.

How sad that we have forgotten this song, how sad that today we are no different than the people at that time- we do wrong, and we blame everyone else for it. When troubles come upon us we don’t accept the fault but instead find someone else to blame. “Yes, I did wrong but it’s not my fault- it was because (whatever)”; we are all victims, and if we can throw the stench of our own sin on others, it makes them smell as bad as we do, so by comparison we are less guilty. I killed, I committed adultery, I gossiped, BUT they asked me, he made me mad, s/he seduced me. There’s always an excuse.

The difference between people who are godly, trustworthy and respected is that they take accountability for their mistakes. The rest of the world (maybe I should say the majority of the world) is more interested in spreading the blame than accepting it.

This song is to be a conviction against the children of God. Not just the Jewish children, but all His children- the Catholic ones, the Baptist ones, the Buddhist ones, the Islamic ones, ….ALL God’s children, for we are all His children. And like sheep, we have been led astray (by religion) because it is easy to do so. We seek only our own hedonistic desires, and only when we are devoid of help, of hope, of guidance and all the other things we think we can find on our own or from others, only then do we (finally) turn to God.

Or we curse God.

That’s how we roll, as a people- we either turn to God recognizing that our punishment is just and deserved, and ask forgiveness, or we continue, even at the very gates of Sheol, to reject God and His justice and insist that we are innocent.

If you are a God-fearing person, if you readily accept your own sinfulness and have asked God for forgiveness through Messiah Yeshua, and if you demonstrate daily your true T’shuvah, then this song isn’t for you. This song is for the ones who reject God, who ignore or despise His laws, and who say they are OK. This song is for those who think God should do and accept what they want Him to do and accept, that certain sins are not sins (because that’s how they want to live) and that all foods are OK, and it’s not a sin to have sex out of wedlock, and divorce is normal.

Funny- Mosaic law is almost universally ignored, and many Christian religions say Torah was done away with by Yeshua (a total lie!) Yet when it comes to divorce, they ignore Yeshua’s admonition that divorce is hateful to God (Matthew 19 and Mark 10, for example) and eagerly accept the Mosaic law that a man can give his wife a Get (divorce decree) pretty much for no other reason than she displeases him (Deuteronomy 24:1.)  Isn’t that what happens today? The divorce rate is nearly 40% within the first 15 years. God said that they become one flesh, and Yeshua said the only justification for divorce is adultery. Shaul (Paul) said in an unevenly yoked marriage if the unsaved partner wants to divorce, that is an acceptable reason. But other than adultery or unevenly yoked marriage (only where the unsaved wants a divorce), marriage lasts as long as you both are alive. And, for the record, biblically acceptable marriage is for men to women, and women to men.

This song is for those who need it most, and probably will care the least about it.

That’s the sad truth of salvation: it is readily available for anyone who asks for it, and those that need it most are the least likely to want it.

Parashah Ki Thetze (Go Forth) Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25

In this parashah there are many seemingly miscellaneous laws, dealing with everything from marrying a captured slave woman to how to divorce her, rights of the criminal, OSHA regulations (must have a parapet on the roof), mixing of different things (animals that are yoked, seeds in the field, cloths), what to wear, what not to wear, sparing the mother bird, adultery, tzitzis, holiness of the camp, kindness to animals, excessive punishment, providing for the poor and needy, accountability for sin, kidnapping, pledges, charging of interest, business dealings, and others.

Most of these laws are easy to understand, and some don’t seem to make sense. This parashah seems to have a little of all three types of laws: Miztvot (commandments), Mishpatim (regulations) and Chukkim (laws we don’t understand the reason or meaning of.)

The message I would like to get across today is this: let the Holy Spirit guide your interpretation.  We may not be able to understand all that we read in the Bible; in fact, we can’t understand all that we read in the Bible! That’s one of the things that is so great about reading it every day! No matter how many times I read it, I always find something new in there, something I have seen a hundred times but never understood before that reading.

And that is not of my doing- it comes from the understanding I receive through the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit.

When I want to know what message God has for me, I “un-focus” my brain and leave it open to the Holy Spirit. It’s like when you find yourself staring directly at something but you don’t really see it because you haven’t focused your stare. I do that with my brain (most people who know me will tell you I do that a lot) and sort of open it up to the Holy Spirit to place what it wants in there. I am sure there are people who hear God talking to them, audibly, but I don’t. I get this little, still voice in the back of my head that just sort of “pops” something in there. And when it goes against what I was thinking I should do or say, or against what I thought I wanted, I can be certain that it is God. Especially because when I get that thought, it’s different from what I thought it should be and yet I know in my spirit that it is right, well…that’s gotta be the Big Guy leading me.

Today what I have for you is a short and simple lesson: let God’s spirit lead your interpretation and understanding when you read His word.

After all, who is better to explain what He means than the author, Himself?

The Ultimate Anger Management Tool: Prayer

There are a number of things that just can’t be done in this life:

1. You can’t scratch your ear with your elbow;

2. You can’t make a leopard change its spots;

3. You can’t make the person ahead of you in line go faster; and

4. You can’t stay angry with someone when you pray for them.

I have a few people in my life that have not only worked hard to earn my anger, but no matter how many times I have tried to overcome their nastiness and bad manners, they always prove their extraordinary talent for obstinacy and spitefulness is more powerful than my meager attempts to ignore them.

That’s when I pray for them. Not always, mind you- I ain’t no saint; not by a long shot. But there are times when I remember the title of this blog and pray for them.

When you pray for someone you need to “get in their shoes” so that your prayer is appropriately aimed at helping them overcome the very thing that gets you so mad at them.

I have a previous life, with two children and an “ex” that has constantly, and consistently, overcome all my attempts to ignore and diffuse her spite, anger and hatred, which she has instilled in my children against me and my family members. I pray for the kids every day, waiting patiently and prayerfully for their reconciliation with me and their turning to God, in whichever order He thinks is best. And sometimes, I am happy to say, I remember to pray for her. Since the day we separated she refused to let us buy things for them and do things for them, insisting she get the money instead of the children getting the clothes , furniture, or whatever we wanted them to have. Over the years she had proven that giving her money is the same as throwing it away, so in the end, the kids have lost out. The worst part is that the kids think everything she has told them is true, and they actually are just as brainwashed as if they had been growing up in a cult. Someone that mean, that hateful, and so hurt that she will eat her own children in order to hurt me is so desperately in need of the love of God that I cannot possibly refuse to pray for her.

And during those 20 plus years of trying to overcome her, the courts were useless (the mother always wins unless she is a drug addict or something like that.) Now the kids are long past majority, and I am helpless. All I have left is prayer. I haven’t even talked to them for a few years now.

All of this kvetching is not to vent or ask for pity, but to give you an idea of the background, so that when I say I have plenty of ammunition for hating and being angry with someone, you can understand just how powerful prayer is, because when I pray for her and for them all I can feel is pity. The anger is gone, and a genuine desire for them to find forgiveness and peace, as I have, is paramount in my heart and spirit.

When I have one of those conversations (you know, the kind where you tell the person what you have always wanted to say and they listen attentively, because it’s all in your mind) and feel myself getting a little worked up, I can now (thanks to the Ruach inside me) stop because I realize what I should be doing is not “getting it off my chest” (which, by the way, never works- you don’t put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it) but placing it before God and asking His intervention. Not for retribution, or even the justice that is deserved, but for help. And not for me, but for her.

For this to work you have to really mean the prayer, and the way I do that is to recall what I have that she doesn’t. I have the Lord; I have Yeshua as my intercessor, and I have salvation with a guaranteed seat at the table. I have everything that is important in death (that’s not a typo- what is important in life is to make sure you know where you go when life is over. Life is short, death is forever, so I want what is important in death more than what is important in life. Don’t you?) and all she has is her hatred and anger. And that is useless to her; it brings no warmth, no love, and no satisfaction since she can’t hurt me anymore. She has used up all her cards, laid them out on the table, and the other players are already gone.

She has nothing. Even though she has the children, what she has taught them is to be self-centered and unappreciative of anything and everyone. She has not shown them how to be useful members of a relationship, how to love properly, how to be independant and self-assured. She has only taught them the way to grow old and alone, with no friends and no God. If they should ever come to their senses, she may lose them, leaving her absolutely nothing. I have already lost them, and I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone. Not even her.

How can anyone be angry with someone so pitiful? And when I pray for her, and for my kids, I can feel the pain she feels. I can realize how hurt she is. I even feel (sometimes) useless and ashamed that I didn’t make more attempts than I did (and believe me, I made a lot of them) to apologize and help more. All I did is not relevant here, so please understand that I did a lot, travelled a lot, spent extra time and money trying to help them and be as close as one can be when two states away.

It is prayer that has helped me, too, to be less angry and vengeful. I know that God is a loving Father and a merciful Judge, but He is, when all is said and done, God. He will judge mercifully but fairly, and those that have come up short and rejected Him will get the short end of the stick and be, themselves, rejected by Him. Without a significant change in their lives, my ex and my children, blind leading the blind, will all fall into the pit and spend eternity in Sheol. I am not happy with that thought…not happy at all.

So I pray. I pray everyday for my children, and I pray now and then for her. As I said, I’m not a saint and do not pray for her as earnestly as I pray for my children. After all, it is anger management, not anger removal. I think it takes more than just prayer to remove the anger totally; prayer is just one of the tools God gives us to do that. There are still things, even from decades ago, that get under my skin, to to speak, and I try to release it all to the Lord, but I seem to have sticky fingers.

Maybe one day I will be cleansed enough by the Living Water, Yeshua Ha Mashiach, so that my fingers will no longer be sticky.

Are you still angry about something? Are you still feeling a need for justice and yes, wanting revenge? Or maybe just to see someone get their “comeuppance?” If you want to get over it, pray for them. Pray earnestly, pray as you know Yeshua would pray for them (“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”), and if you are having a hard time with that, think about this: you get to be in Paradise forever, and they will be in eternal suffering with no chance for parole. Think about how close you came to their fate, how much better your position than theirs, and much more love you have in your life because you have the Lord, Yeshua and the Ruach HaKodesh. Think about all that you have and all that they don’t, and if you don’t feel pity and remorse for them, well, you should question your own salvation!

I don’t want to believe that anyone who knows the love of God, the suffering of Messiah and the forgiveness we have received could possibly want to deny that to anyone. No matter what they did.

Anger is not a sin, and Shaul tells us that we should not sin in our anger. Be angry if you are mistreated, misjudged, hurt and humiliated. It’s natural to be angry, just don’t sin in your anger. If you want to get rid of it, pray for the person who did it to you. Anger and vengeance are a wormwood that will eat you up from the inside out, so let God have it.

Proverbs says to not return evil for evil, but wait upon the Lord. It’s good advice. Pray for those that have hurt you and made you angry and you will see that it really is the ultimate anger management tool.