Apostasy Comes Stealthily

I remember when I was young our mother taught us many useful things. One particular lesson was to "Bloom where you were planted". Something s in our life will never be in our control, so we need to control our reactions to those unsettling events and make the best of them. After all, we never know how life will turn out until the end.

I took it to heart, as did my siblings. Sure, we get bummed when we have things planned out and then life throws you a curve, but for the most part we have tried to live by those lessons learned long ago.

I recently met with an older couple for an afternoon and during the visit listened as the wife rehearsed her dissatisfaction at being "displaced" from one house of worship to another. The religion hasn't changed. Her location has; and it is actually more convenient for them. This is something that she should have understood would happen(being a member for over fourty years), this is the way of things in the church. Growth causes change and change is always growth.

Back in the day I was always taught that God places you in certain paths until you no longer are needed there, or until you have learned what you can from the experience. "Bad" things, tests, trials and the like are not negative in reality, but opportunities for growth and development.

This woman earned a great reputation as a teacher. She could pick up a manual or topic assignment and then give a great application to her students. She found creative ways to motivate and enrich. Then one day she was released from her duty.

Instead of thinking of it as a great opportunity -as she had taught us to- she became embittered towards her leadership and towards the poor innocent person who was chosen to take her position. She looked at it as a "replacement" as a "undeserved demotion" as and adversary who had come"unworthily and unqualified" to "ruin" the position and all who would be involved. Her reaction to this change was to run away. She convinced herself and her husband that she was "sick" and stayed home that first week. That first week led to a second and then a third and she has been "sick" every weekend for almost two years. Now that she has discovered that their boundaries will place them in a new building, she is outraged. Now, instead of feigning illness on the week end, she is "protesting" and refuses to attend.

My question to her was "Will your lack of attendance change the situation?" She didn't answer with words but with a face of indignation; she knew the she had no power to change the situation, but still she is bucking the system.

Instead of accepting that she had served well, and that a younger, non experienced teacher was now learning to become a gifted teacher, she quit the team, she took her toys and went home. This woman, who could have been a great mentor to the new teacher, instead became selfish. Did it change the situation? No. It just took her down the road to apostasy as subtly as that alligator in the swamp waiting for the perfect moment to snap down an antelope at the water's edge.

If you asked she or her husband if she were inactive she would reply "No, I am just sick on the weekend." If you proposed the idea that she were apostate, she would be shocked to be classified as such. But in reality, she doesn't accept the authority that has changed the situations in her life, she feels she knows more than those who have been called to represent God, and feels she knows better than God and His will for her. She is defiant and when asked about whether these in authority are called of God, she mocks them and breaks sacred covenants in the process. It's sad.

I try to have some introspection within my own life to see the areas that I choose to put on that road to apostasy. Where do I dig in? Who do I mock? Who do I see as unfit for the Kingdom? Do I pick and choose whom has authority and who does not according to my preferences? Do I feign illness or create situations that cause me to withdraw myself from certain activities that I don't care for? Do I become hurt or offended because I have been released or called to a position I don't really want?

I am struggling with these issues. Wanting to help the woman I write about, yet turning to the mirror and hoping I can more effectively change that woman. I pray I can have influence on both.