“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord;  live as children of light.”

Ephesians 5:8

I have recently been reading the book that Gayle Haggard wrote about her experiences before and after the time her husband Ted was exposed as having carried on a three year series of sexual liaisons with a male prostitute which also involved taking illegal drugs. He was one of America’s most prominent evangelical leaders and the senior minister of a church of 14,000 members in Colorado Springs.  It created news headlines around the world.

We had been connected to Ted and New Life Church over a number of years in the late 1990’s and the shock of that revelation was profound and painful.  He had been a great source of encouragement to many of us an had a “breath of fresh air” way of bringing Biblical truth down to everyday experience.  He also had great leadership wisdom.  So we were all shocked beyond belief.

In her reflection on the years prior to and during this horrible experience for their family, Gayle highlighted something that struck me as significant and universal.  From the beginning of their relationship she knew that there were areas of Ted’s heart and mind that were never opened to her.  It was an awareness that came in short “flashes” and then disappeared. So much about it was ‘right’ and the ‘rightness’ wanted to push this awareness into the background.  It wanted to challenge her peeking into this dark place by telling her that it didn’t exist OR that it wasn’t important.  The black hole she occasionally peered into contained forces so dark and so strong that they would smash her heart, the hearts of her children and family, and the members of the church - indeed people around the world.  She knew something was there but had no idea what it was.

When the matter became public and she and her family were dragged through the ignominy of public scorn around the world she faced the challenge of choosing whether or not she was willing to do the work that would give their marriage a hope and a future. Among the many things they needed to discuss was the fact that this black hole had been kept away from her by Ted for all of their married life.  You don’t have to be Einstein to know why Ted was unwilling to share this part of his life.  To him it was a matter of shame and he was never loving enough, courageous enough or humble enough to open this area to her.  Had he done so, it is likely that the diabolical force could have been dismantled and the damage avoided.  It would probably have meant that other things would have been exposed and dealt with along the way - e.g. pride.

When Paul, the apostle wrote to believers in the letter to the Ephesians he was reminding them of the fact that their calling was to live as children of light.  Whatever else that means it addresses this very issue.  We all have ‘black hole’ areas of our lives that remain hidden from view.  It is possible for us to keep them hidden for much of the time but, as Gayle Haggard knew, the fact that it was hidden meant that it was also a potential threat to everything that was of value in a marriage, family and Christian ministry.  When she had tried to address the issue, Ted had shut her out.  That proved to be his most fatal mistake.

When I began to read this I realized that we all have these areas.  They mightn’t be as potent as they were in Ted’s experience, but they WILL certainly have impact and it will almost be guaranteed to be damaging.

One of the things that has become very important to me is to talk with God in prayer about everything that is inside me.  I am not suggesting that I DO talk about everything, but I have been trying.  It happens as I live my life from week to week and come across all kinds of issues within me and around me.  I have come to understand that part of God’s sovereign love is the agenda he sets for me through the people and circumstances I deal with week to week.  The moment I start to lock away feelings and throughs and attitudes that arise rather than opening them up to God I consider that I am in trouble.  So when something bugs me I just go to a place where I can speak aloud to God and sit, walk or lie on the floor until I have emptied my heart on the matter.  I say everything I feel just as I feel it.  Sometimes it is pretty awful and I am glad that only God can hear, but I consider it to be a part of an important process.  I learned this from reading the Psalms.  The Psalm writers said some shameful things to God.  If I had been the Holy Spirit I wouldn’t have put those things in the Bible -  bad for the public image I would have thought.  But the Holy Spirit lives in the light, as does the Father and Son.  They know that living in the light is the only way to live.  We seem to have to keep on learning that.

When I find myself at the end of saying everything there is to say and when there is nothing left inside me that is not expressed, I find that it is much easier to hear from God.  I commonly experience this.  It must be that he has less to compete with.  When I begin to hear from God about a matter and allow him to have his way, I can rise up from the place of prayer and deal with the matters with a much more loving, redemptive, open way.  What has happened in the place of prayer is that God has changed me.

All of that is fine and good, but I think there is more to this.  In the throws of all these thought processes, I wondered if there were dark areas that Nola (my wife) was aware of that I locked her out of.  So I asked.  She said there were and we began to talk about them.  As a result of this we came to a disagreement and the matter waits for another time to be discussed.

It seems to me that these “black holes” are the things that sever friendships, break marriages, hurt families, destroy churches and the like.  I think it’s time we started opening the shutters of the caves that are filled with the potent forces capable of doing these things and allow the loving light of heaven to shine so that they are not only disempowered but in order for the “body” to be detoxed.  Just imagine what a detoxed church would look like, feel like and then think of what it would be capable of.  The remaining potent force would be the unchallenged power of the Holy Spirit to redeem, renew and reform and restore.