Manipulation

I've read so many books and articles and heard so many speakers I can't always remember where I heard something.  But there are things that stick in my mind as if nuclear charged by the Holy Spirit.  What I'm writing about today is one of those.

I don't know about you but most of my Christian life I've heard sermons and teaching on how to be a nice guy.  I've heard lots of sermons that were chock full of truth but didn't have much practical application to my life.  That's because the speaker didn't go there.  It's difficult to talk about how truth applies to your life.  You might reveal something about your own sins.  Or you might step on the toes of someone who is important.  Or someone who will confront you because they didn't like what you said.  It came too close to home for them.

But this one is serious and I don't think that I heard it in a sermon.  Manipulation is being used daily by Christians.  Broken Christians who are trying to get their needs met by someone other than God.  They are attempting to cause the behavior of someone in their life to be changed so that it meets their selfish needs. 

It's a lot easier to try to get someone else to meet our needs than to do the hard work of touching the pain and working through to healing with the Father.  The Father wants to be intimate with us and to meet our every need but he is a gentleman and won't barge into our lives.  He waits to be invited.  And sometimes the process of inviting him is much more difficult than just trying to get someone else to meet our selfish needs.  Sometimes the Father doesn't jump when we snap our fingers like someone else in our lives might if we put pressure on them.

When we are broken we don't think of others, but only ourselves.  We are our primary concern because we are in pain.  No one else's pain or life is as important as our own.  It is really immature behavior.  We look to someone else to meet our needs just as a child does.  The problem is God wants us to come to him with our needs and not go to others.  He wants to be the source of all our resources.  Yes, he will use people but they will be responding to his will in their lives and not ours as they come to impact us.

Here's where it gets really sticky.  Manipulation is witchcraft.  And there are Christians every day practicing witchcraft in attempts to get their needs met by someone else other than God.  Manipulation is witchcraft because we are trying to control the lives of others and get them to do our will.  When we do that it gets in the way of that person listening to the Father for guidance to do his will.

Manipulation is sticky because it usually involves someone in our lives that is close to us...a boss, a work colleague, a partner in a marriage, a family member, a brother or sister in the church.  It really puts the person in the focus of the manipulation in a very difficult place.  They have to take a risky stand to thwart the manipulation.  They have to put at risk a relationship that is meaningful to them on some level.  When someone is confronted about manipulation or they don't get their way it can get ugly.

How is manipulation touching your life today?  Are you the victim of someone's manipulation?  Are you the manipulator?  My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will do for us all today what he promises...that he will lead us into all truth and he will reveal our sin to us.  Expect it.  He is faithful.