Years ago, I invited my dad to travel abroad. It was his first trip away from the United States. It was a trip that undoubtedly mended broken aspects of his own inner child, but it also gave me new insights into his psyche and the reasons he may have behaved towards me as he did when I was a child and younger adult.
This trip was sponsored by a church I had once attended, and at the time, I believed I accepted the invitation from the pastors in an effort to make peace with the way my time had ended at this church. I wanted to walk in forgiveness, but I also wanted to rectify that the spiritual abuses that I had experienced at the hands of these pastors and some of the members weren’t just my imagination.
The Trip
Inviting my dad to go along on this trip served as my physical protection from harm in a space where I’d once incurred spiritual abuse, but little did I know that he would be the one who needed actual protection.
There’d be a lot exposed on this trip regarding some of the people with whom we shared travel, and I would come to have all of my suspicions about past spiritual abuses confirmed in a way that was not only eye-opening but also mind-blowing.
By the trip’s end, I felt as if God had revealed a lot of spiritual aspects of narcissistic abuse that I was only just beginning to learn about as it pertained to both my life in church as an adult and my life growing up as a child.
A Secret Revealed
Years after this trip, my dad shared with me how he believed he’d been set up to get into trouble with Customs when he found items in his suitcase that didn’t belong to him nor that he’d even placed in his suitcase.
My dad said that he never shared this aspect of the trip with me because he didn’t want me to fight his battles; nor did he want anything to get in the way of my attempts to mend broken fences with some of the members on the trip from this church.
Specifically, my dad couldn’t make much sense of the situation and was actually in disbelief about it for a long time. However, he knew exactly who was responsible for setting him up.
Since my dad didn’t want to create any further conflict with the people we traveled with, such as the pastors and the individual(s) responsible for planting the objects in his suitcase, he decided to just keep quiet about it. Despite his quietness, however, he said that he remained bothered by this situation for years to come.
Fortunately, the tour guide on this trip had gotten to know my dad and was aware of the behavior of certain individuals that traveled with us. The individuals who tried to set my dad up for trouble were adult male members of the church, and they didn’t like my dad at all. This was something I was aware of from the start based on their behaviors and micro-expressions.
One person in particular was a lead flying monkey to the pastors. He was the ringleader of the group who openly treated my dad with disdain. The ringleader and the group of men with him were also very dismissive towards my dad. They made jokes in my dad’s presence that seemed to go over my dad’s head, and they also talked condescendingly towards him.
Normally, I viewed my dad as a take-charge type of man who had no fear. Yet, we were on a trip in a foreign country with people that my dad didn’t personally know. Despite what I saw as these men’s subtle mistreatment of my dad, my dad also seemed oblivious to their negative behaviors towards him and perhaps insecure.
Overall, though, my dad was simply happy to be on this trip, and his happiness showed in expressive ways via all the pictures he took and in all the ways he greeted everyone he came into contact with while we were on tours. The ringleader and the group of men behaved as if they despised my dad for being friendly towards others. In essence, they literally despised him for being himself.
I had to wonder if my dad’s obliviousness was something he and I both shared as autistic traits. What my dad didn’t discern made me angry on his behalf. I actually felt protective of my dad on this trip and kept a watchful eye on those men, but little did I know that these men intended to plant contraband in my dad’s suitcase while we weren’t around in the lobby in an attempt to get my dad into trouble when we arrived at the airport.
However, thank God that there was an intervention that stopped something negative from occurring. If that intervention had not happened, my dad’s overall good memories of the trip might have been ruined by these adult bullies.
For whatever reason, my dad said that “something” told him to check his suitcase despite the fact that he had checked it prior to leaving the hotel room. We both viewed that “something” as the silent but nudging voice of the Holy Spirit of God.
For a time, my dad had left his suitcase unattended in the lobby of the hotel while we were all waiting around to leave for the airport. At some point, he noticed that the zipper of his suitcase was shifted to the other side. So he decided to inspect his suitcase.
When my dad opened his bag, he found a few small items that didn’t belong to him and could tell that they had been conspicuously placed in a way that he might have missed them if he had not looked for them. He said that he knew right away which one of the men had placed the items in his bag because he had last seen this man laughing with those same items in his hands. My dad said that his heart dropped immediately because he thought he was on friendly terms with this man and the other men a part of this man’s group.
As soon as my dad discovered the items in his suitcase, he alerted the tour guide, and the tour guide took the items away. Had we made it to the airport, and Customs had found the items, my dad would have more than likely been detained for questioning and whatever else. At the time that this happened, my dad decided not to say anything about it to me for fear that I would become upset and confront somebody about it. As a result of the experience, my dad said he knew that he never wanted to be involved with those types of “Christians” again.
A Murder For Hire In The Spirit Realm
I call this situation a murder for hire because I believe within the spirit realm the enemy of our souls seeks to kill, steal and destroy the divine purpose that has been set for our lives even within life’s simplicity. In narcissistically empowered churches, the spirit realm is open and rife with evil. People who behave in narcissistic ways are often open targets for whatever evil comes about. For as James 3:16 says, “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.”
Within this particular church, the narcissistic pastors lead and their flying monkeys follow. In fact, the flying monkeys and enablers will do anything to keep the pastors in power. From experience, these pastors would use submissive members to single out and target anyone who exhibited characteristics that made them appear as different. Yet, they’d also go after those that they considered spiritually aware. They hated anyone who had the potential to expose the truth of their lies. This was one of the major reasons I (as well as a few others) was driven from that church.
I know hate is a strong word to use here, but I could discern their hatred based on the way they treated me. Even if the members treated me with such disregard out of ignorance, blind loyalty to the pastors, or their own spiritual deception, I could feel the hate vibrating from their stares and coming forth from their bodies. If one refused to bow down to the pastors or chose to think for themselves regarding scriptures, then they were as good as enemies of the church.
Fortunately, my dad’s intuition to check his bag before we left the hotel kept him from further troubles and embarrassment at the airport. This situation also served as a cautionary tale for him when it came to paying attention to the people around him, even if those people claimed to be “Christians”. It’s a shame that this was the case in terms of a wonderful trip, but it’s imperative to be watchful of the company we keep no matter how much they give a presentation of holiness or religiosity.
Specifically, within narcissistically empowered churches, the term Christian can often be a word narcissistic individuals throw off to anyone that is unaware and/or not operating in discernment to judge between truth and error. Narcissistic individuals rely on people being followers and doers of their will within a church setting instead of being followers of God and the Word. This is usually how cults and sects evolve within these types of environments in the first place.
In the end, the plan that the men my father and I believe attempted to set him up for trouble did not prevail. What our spiritual enemy meant for harm was worked out by God for good on my dad’s behalf, and my dad was able to savor the better memories apart from that unfortunate event.
Yet, I was disappointed to know that this is what even men who claimed to be followers of Christ were capable of even though I was not necessarily surprised by their actions. A church led by narcissistic individuals is not that much different from a work environment or a home led by narcissistic individuals. There’s always going to be some manipulative occurrences to watch out and protect oneself from.
Be careful and watch out murderers for hire in the spiritual realm. You never know when they might strike.
Stay tuned for more in the next post.
My Voice Unchained 