Day 5: The Divider and Disintegration

‘The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy…’ (Jn. 10:10)

Integration is wholeness, and God who created and redeems us, its champion; walking in hope and humility, we make peace with the true, often disempowered aspects of our humanity and do our part to live wholly. We learn to heed the echoes of Eden and rely fully on the grace of Jesus who holds us together.

Disintegration is our fallen state, our sadness east of Eden. Its driver is a common ‘enemy’ (Gr. ‘dia-bolos’, ‘to tear apart’) who seeks to destroy us through dividing our humanity. Each of us bears this broken image. Everyone. As to not give Satan too much authority, we the fractured contribute mightily to our own divides by doubting God’s capacity to do anything about our brokenness and redoubling our efforts to meet our needs our way.

Nowhere is the divider more successful than in the sexual realm—our powers of life and love in which the enemy drives deep stakes. Divided from our value as male or female, mercilessly judging the quality of our sexual gift (and thus the Giver!), bombarded by fake images of love that drive and deride us, and preyed upon by a host of parasites (we become jaded adults by mid-childhood), we live as subjects of another kingdom, enslaved by dark powers.

Yes, we are all sinners, but we sin under a sophisticated spell cast by the divider himself. He has reduced us by his lies and now we perpetuate those lies by reducing others. We go to enormous lengths to create new selves and altars then insist that everyone around us bow to our demonized pursuits in the name of ‘justice.’

Friends become enemies, especially the Church. Employing the ‘rights’ of sexually disintegrated ones as his weapon, our common enemy splits churches over and over and widens the gap between a just understanding of sexual integrity and mercy, its only means of attainment.

The demonic ace-in-the-hole? The sexual misuse of persons, including children, by sexually divided clergy. As long as we the Church refuse to face and discipline shepherds who partake of the sheep (and to allow any in responsible leadership under them to do so), we give our common divider the power to dim our witness of sexual integrity.

Through shocking mercy, let judgment begin in God’s house. Let it begin in my house, Jesus. Face down before the Crucified, fractures laid bare, the enemy flees, and God hastens His restoration in the heart of His Church. My heart. ‘Jesus, rouse the gift we are. Help us to attend to the treasure you summon from the trash. Free us from our constant faultfinding and free us for vestiges of paradise in our memories and in our lives today. We refuse the liar who tries to rewrite Eden out of our histories. Unite us to the home of our original dignity.’

‘Jesus, have mercy on us as Your Church. We have abused weaker members, including children, and protected ourselves. We have violated the most vulnerable. In Your mercy, free us to superabound with justice. Grant us Kingdom discernment and courage to reform ourselves. May our repentance grant us Kingdom authority to strengthen the weak, discipline violators, and restore the violated.’