Masters of misdirection and mesmerizing fog
People like King Ahab spend their lives using and abusing others, to get what they want. They also mesmerize and misdirect us, so we won’t see them as they are.
Spiritual schizophrenia and the two-headed snake
"How long will you try to go both ways?" Elijah cried. Where people identified with God cling to deep double-mindedness, they empower a two-headed snake.
Resentment and its victims: Hate without cause
Resentment may seem harmless. It may seem justified. Yet it is toxic and often misdirected. Whether it’s simmering within you or aimed at you, it’s hurting you.
Love story? Fairy-tale life? The abuse in Esther
Have we seen Queen Esther as a beloved wife, living a fairy-tale life? If so, we’ve missed the abuse in her story and a surprising key to reigning in life.
When evil seems invincible: Two surprising sources of hope
Where two malignant narcissists ruled, so did ruthlessness. Where evil seemed invincible, Mordecai and Esther seized on two surprising sources of hope and life.
Illusionists! The abusers we have not seen
Some illusionists fool us to amuse us. Abusers and abusive systems fool us to control us. Freedom and life hinge on seeing the illusionists we have not seen.
Treachery and divorce: When God sees betrayal
If you have been betrayed by a spouse: The God who sees you has been there. He hates treachery. He calls out the treacherous - and he defends the betrayed.
Nat Arnett / freeimages.com
Beware the illusion of refuge: Abuse in the church
Leaders in our church systems can create an illusion that refuge for the abused exists, where it does not. How can we recognize when this is happening?
Shunning in the church
Any group that shuns is withholding your deepest needs in order to control you. That’s the opposite of loving you. It’s people you trusted, trying to erase you.
When church leaders bully people and reject God
The day I realized what I had been seeing for years, it broke my heart: church leaders bullying people, rejecting God, leading their followers to do the same.