It’s all my fault

She logged-in to the Christian dating site where she met an amazing man who loved Jesus very deeply. They messaged back and forth for several weeks. She found out from another brother that this man had cancer and was living in the hospital, so she decided to visit him, bring some faith-based books and some fruit to give him hope. She and a sister visited him every week and she arranged for others from her church to visit him also. He said, “your church really does love people.” He told her that he felt God was punishing him for his sexual sins. She told him some prophets were coming to the church and she would ask them to visit him. After the prophets spoke at church, she went up to talk to them about the brother in the hospital. One prophet said to her “he got what he deserves, stop visiting him,” so she stopped, telling the man she was too busy to visit. But after a few weeks, she felt guilty, so she called him, but he refused to talk with her. She offered to visit him at his home, but he refused again. She had others from the church call him, but he refused them also. And then one day, he jumped out of the window, killing himself. Some people at the church told her, “he lost hope because you stopped visiting him.” The man’s mother told her, “he’d still be alive if you hadn’t stopped visiting him.” She was angry and hurt, so she confronted the prophets and they responded, declaring they had spoke truth and telling her  “you must fast and pray for three days so the brother will go to heaven,” which she did. She was still hurting when she vowed in her heart, “I won’t serve anyone ever again.”

After we talked for over an hour, she accused the prophets for judging this man instead of encouraging him to confess from the heart and to ask his Father to forgive him. She forgave the prophets, trusting her Father to do justice for her. She confessed that she accepted their words as if they were from her Father, stopping her weekly visits. She asked her Father to forgive her. She rejected the words of the prophets and asked her Father to break their power. She accused the mother and the church people of judging her instead of thanking her and comforting her. She forgave them trusting her Father to do justice for her. She rejected their judging words and asked her Father to break their power. She accused the man of returning evil for her kindness by killing himself, for refusing the comfort from the church, for making such a hurtful and selfish decision. She forgave him, trusting her Father to do justice for her. She rejected the lie, “it’s all my fault.” He refused to be helped and he chose to jump out the window. She asked her Father, “How do you see this event?” and her Father quickly and gently said “it’s not your fault my child.” She asked her Father to tie the truth to her heart. I gently reminded her that when you give someone a cup of cold water, you are giving it to Jesus and he is delighted in the kindness. Finally, she confessed making an unwise vow to not serve others and asked her Father to forgive her. She also rejected the vow and asked her Father to release her from fulfilling it. At the end, she praised her Father for setting her free from this heavy burden and now she is living in victory over sin, no longer troubled by this event, loving others again.

The words of others can have great power over us, so we must guard our hearts. No one is responsible for what words you let into your heart except you. When we stand before our Father as adults, we can’t say we are innocent, we are responsible for the words we accept. We also can’t just blame those we look up to spiritually, the Rabbis in our life because God is our Rabbi now, our Teacher, our Father, our Leader (Matt 23:8-10).

-Mike Banker 2014