I do think remaining silent to protect the spiritual abuser in a church situation at whose hands we suffered, or the bully, or abuser who have bullied or abused us merely enables them to continue abusing both us and other people.

I am not sure we need to need to expose evil we have not personally suffered from. For all sorts of reasons. Dwelling on dark things introduces darkness into our minds (and even perhaps our bodies) (Matthew 6:23). Exposing evil can expose us to the same temptations as the one we are attacking. (Romans 2:1, and Galatians 2:6. ) We may be misjudging them. We are playing the role of the accuser of the brethren.

I was in a church in which the leaderships would say “Don't tell anyone,” after bullying or spiritual abuse. If we've suffered, we should certainly tell. But sometimes I am tempted to “out” spiritual charlatans at whose hands I have not suffered, and try not to because of the darkness and stress this will introduce to my own soul.

Tricky stuff, the spiritual life…

I'll re-read through what you wrote!

It's hard for me to find the balance of being vulnerable when others are involved! Guess we have to trust God for it…but I remember you saying before that evil should always be exposed.

That's so interesting that you saw your writing as a self-indulgence rather than a gift — I see God writers as those with a God given voice to get out what He has called them to say. I pray God pours out even more of Him on your writing, and that you experience more and more freedom in writing as you continue to use this gift! I also pray God blesses your obedience in responding to the writing gift He placed inside of you.

Yes, it is the laundry-basket guy. He'll kill me, if he reads my blog. He did help me a lot, but also put a lot of guilt on me, so that I saw my writing as a self-indulgence rather than a gift and calling from God. There is a fine line between a mentor and tormentor
which is why we need to hear the voice of God, first!!

Hi Anita,
I loved this post. I wrote down a time management lesson I learned from it on the top of my daily routine sheet. THANKS.

However, I feel like what your friend (the laundry basket guy) said presented God as a rigid father who won't give you “any more”. As if He had zero tolerance of you not listening right away…Would God really not give you any more writing prompts when His desire is for you to use the gifts He placed inside of you to draw all people to Himself? Seems weird that He would take it away for that reason…Just wanted to share… 🙂

Welcome to my blog, The Identity Project. I suppose God's voice does not always make sense, though it often does. And by obeying, we learn what is definitely Him. I guess, we learn listening and obedience to the inner voice, like anything else, by trial and error, and God knows that, and it is okay with him.