Putting It Out There
I am a Christian who happens to be a chaplain. Earlier in my life I was a pastor for 14 years and a missionary for another two. I have personally experienced the transforming power of God in my own life and seen it in countless others. If I was testifying in a courtroom, under oath, this statement would be 100% fact.
Yet many in the world today hear these statements from Christians and would suggest we would be perjuring ourselves in a courtroom if we spoke in such a way. I use this analogy because within the mental health profession there are many who absolutely do not accept that God has any role in healing an individual. In the policing community where I am a chaplain, it is a constant battle (and that is the correct word) to be heard. Even many chaplains have taken the easy way out and accepted that drugs and psychologists are the only solution for broken individuals. They might even go so far as to approve meditation, yoga and equine therapy but not the One who transforms.
The reason is actually quite simple. The Christian faith has been eliminated from our schools to the point where new recruits in policing don't even know what a chaplain is. Most don't even know what a pastor or priest is. I saw it first hand when speaking to a class of new recruits last year.
All the other forms of "therapy" for things like PTSD and stress and even suicidal thoughts, are going to remain and I have no issue with that. Many of the treatments do help our men and women deal with their symptoms. There is something about the Christian faith however that is not a temporary fix or a coping mechanism. It is a relationship with the One who created you. It is a human being saying I want to know that in the end, I will be OK.
The thing lacking for those who deal with stress-related illnesses is peace. God never promises to remove everything hurtful in our lives but he does promise to help us overcome them. One of the other options for cops who are struggling in their personal lives is a thing called peer support. This is when a fellow cop comes along side you and helps you in dealing with the issue you are facing. Now consider the creator of the universe doing that for you. The One the Bible says knows you better than anyone else.
Our response to this offer is best explained by C.S. Lewis who among other things wrote the Chronicles of Narnia.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (Mere Christianity, 55-56)
As a police chaplain my goal is not to sound religious but rather to be someone that offers life. Our police in North America are literally under attack and I want to support them by being light in the darkness. If your perception of Jesus is messed up perhaps it is time to ask someone to introduce you to Him. It could change your life forever.
Yet many in the world today hear these statements from Christians and would suggest we would be perjuring ourselves in a courtroom if we spoke in such a way. I use this analogy because within the mental health profession there are many who absolutely do not accept that God has any role in healing an individual. In the policing community where I am a chaplain, it is a constant battle (and that is the correct word) to be heard. Even many chaplains have taken the easy way out and accepted that drugs and psychologists are the only solution for broken individuals. They might even go so far as to approve meditation, yoga and equine therapy but not the One who transforms.
The reason is actually quite simple. The Christian faith has been eliminated from our schools to the point where new recruits in policing don't even know what a chaplain is. Most don't even know what a pastor or priest is. I saw it first hand when speaking to a class of new recruits last year.
All the other forms of "therapy" for things like PTSD and stress and even suicidal thoughts, are going to remain and I have no issue with that. Many of the treatments do help our men and women deal with their symptoms. There is something about the Christian faith however that is not a temporary fix or a coping mechanism. It is a relationship with the One who created you. It is a human being saying I want to know that in the end, I will be OK.
The thing lacking for those who deal with stress-related illnesses is peace. God never promises to remove everything hurtful in our lives but he does promise to help us overcome them. One of the other options for cops who are struggling in their personal lives is a thing called peer support. This is when a fellow cop comes along side you and helps you in dealing with the issue you are facing. Now consider the creator of the universe doing that for you. The One the Bible says knows you better than anyone else.
Our response to this offer is best explained by C.S. Lewis who among other things wrote the Chronicles of Narnia.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (Mere Christianity, 55-56)
As a police chaplain my goal is not to sound religious but rather to be someone that offers life. Our police in North America are literally under attack and I want to support them by being light in the darkness. If your perception of Jesus is messed up perhaps it is time to ask someone to introduce you to Him. It could change your life forever.
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