The Danger of the Dual Natured “Helper”
This is all about the need for discernment. I’ve lived long enough to see this pattern, this psycho-spiritual dynamic over and over in folks. Often they are the folks that most try to convince you of how pure, innocent and virtuous they are. That they are just “here to help.” They present themselves as “extra good.”
There are many hurting, broken and toxic people that TRY ON THEIR OWN POWER to “distance” themselves from that feeling of being a broken loser. They then try to compensate — to “be a good person” without doing all the inner repentance, prayer and inner healing by… STARTING SOME “MINISTRY”. In particular, a Christian ministry.
Some of these people with a “ministry” are the most broken of all. They try to fake-it-till-they-make -it. God did not call them to start any ministry, not at this time anyway! They try to disassociate with the hurting person and identify as a “good” person however good most looks in their own mind. But in reality, this ministry is a FRONT to try to compensate for guilt, shame, and harm either perpetrated on them or that they perpetrated on others.
They REINFORCE their supposed “goodness” by being in some service (nurse, psychologist, prayer warrior, spiritual healer, etc.). They usually have GOOD intention, but that is on top of those positive intentions is a SPIRITUAL MESS, an emotional mess, much brokenness still unresolved. There is tacking life and all its challenges (on one hand), and then there is still being still in a messy, TOXIC state.
American culture in particular tells us we need to be happy and positive. All the time, no matter what. It tells people that to be AT ALL unhappy is to be a loser that everyone will reject — unpopular, unloved and shunned. Thus people in general, and women in particular will try to LAUGH OFF internal wounds, past violations, their own abuse to others, their selfishness, the involvement in various evil activities, etc..
We call the person who is totally empty on the inside and extra compensates with entitlement and inflated sense of virtue a “covert narcissist.” Yes, there is that, but I’m not focused on the issue of narcissism at this time. I’m talking about genuinely damaged people, who are not narcissists, but who CANNOT of HAVE NOT dealt with their damage — and hey, I get it.
A core part of real healing is GRIEVING. And that might indeed take YEARS. Meanwhile, society is telling them to “get over it”, to “move on”, and pressuring them to paste on the happy face. THIS is a horribly toxic thing about American culture (and other cultures, but I’m here in America). In truth, American culture is TOXIC precisely because it shuns people who are trying to grieve!
America will pressure people to be EVEN MORE INAUTHENTIC than they already tend to be. To develop a FALSE PERSONA to compensate for inner woundedness. And we all deal with this to SOME degree. I just want to put the spotlight on the person that tries to erase inner pain with a virtuous persona in the form of a religious or spiritual ministry.
This is a tendency in wounded people in general, but is especially concentrated in people that get into a spiritual or Christian ministry.
I want to point out the the EXTRA wounded person will tend to reinvent themselves as some kind of “minister”. This way, by outside people seeing and treating themselves as good, it helps them in their delusion — that they must BE GOOD and be healed already, and be non-toxic, and be welcomed.
They are attempting to get VALIDATION on top of things inside then that need to be LOVED and RESOLVED, but not validated in superficial ways. They want, as we all want, love and acceptance. But BEWARE of the person who tries the “ministry” persona as their strategy identity as a healed person who is ready to heal others, when no, in reality they need lots more inner healing themselves.
This happens so often in psychology that it is a stereotype now of the psychologist who is secretly toxic, selfish and uncaring. But this often happens when someone SELF-APPOINTS themselves as some form of religious or spiritual minister.
It is all the more DANGEROUS in the supposed “Christian Minister” because there are less ways to measure their competency to minister to others.
Such a person will reason that if I am HELPING other people, see I must be a good person. And if I am a good person than I am not that broken person I am trying to run away from on the inside. It is a mess of self-contradiction, a denial and delusion, a compensation.
The danger out in the world is that many “helpers” are out there doing various degrees of MALPRACTICE — officially or unofficially.
If that is your tendency: God loves you; He loves the broken and the still toxic. And you may have received SOME healing and feel excited to share it with everyone. You’re not ready, in many cases. You’re still half-baked so to speak, in your healing. Yes you have a testimony, but a partial testimony. Yes you are always to speak truth in love, but God probably did not call you to JUMP INTO MINISTRY PREMATURELY.
You know how some EXTRA lonely people will JUMP INTO MARRIAGE, prematurely? It is driven by desperation, by pain. Well this is the spiritual version of THAT. Let God heal you and make you good from the INSIDE out. Putting on the TRAPPINGS and titles of some kind of minister with some ministry does not make you ready or actually anointed by God Himself.
A TEST
Here’s a key to telling if the self-proclaimed helper / minister is legitimate of not. Because the person generating the persona of goodness in order to compensate for inner wounds NEEDS YOU to see them a specific way — as unquestionably good, welcomed, legitimate, etc. They will react negatively to questioning, to skepticism, and so forth.
A mature person who is here to minister to the spiritual needs of others does not NEED a specific response. They will not use ANY manipulation tactic (guilt, shame, gas lighting, and all the other tactics). They will not get DEFENSIVE on you as that is a Red Flag of EGO at work. They will be mature, calm, passionate and loving, but not NEEDY towards the person they are supposed to be ministering to. This is the hallmark of GENUINE MATURITY, and this is rare in our selfish and inauthentic society.
In Conclusion
Folks, be careful who you open up to. Don’t be in FEAR; instead be in godly DISCERNMENT. Ask God to rebuke all counterfeits, for His protection, for all the armor in Ephesians, for all fakes. They usually have a DUAL nature. Very sincere on one hand, but a hidden (repressed) DARK SIDE to them.
Some are quite aware of their inner darkness, and some repress it so hard and their denial is so complete, that they have practically forgotten parts of themselves and their past that lingers on in their spirit, soul and psyche. Use extreme discernment, friends. There is GOD’s light. And there is FAKE light too.
ANYTHING GOOD (that has virtue and life to it) will attract spiritual infiltrators! There was an evil infiltrator even in Jesus’ own disciples, but by discernment, Jesus knew it all along.
