Abused people blame themselves. Without this essential component, the snare they are entangled in wouldn’t function. They are usually struggling with people pleasing and lack of boundaries, not accountability.
They have already been carrying all the weight of not only themselves, but the sin of others as well. They’re overburdened and not functioning well due to survival mode and fighting just to stay alive. Since they are consistently blamed for the behavior of others, when they go to get help and the counselor finds more sin for them to repent for, the counselor is doing the same thing the abuser does to them.
By the time an abused person seeks outside help, it’s often after they’ve already tried everything and none of it worked, so they are exhausted. They’ve been manipulated into believing that the whole situation is all their fault. They are losing hope.
The last thing they need is someone listing one more thing wrong with them. One more failure. One more fault. One more character flaw. One more change they don’t have the energy to make.
The sin they need to repent of is taking the responsibility for others’ sins and putting their effort into trying to change another person rather than becoming who they should be in the Lord,
but everyone has sin. Abuse is about power and control. The solution is not in identifying who has sin. It’s in identifying who is in control, stopping the cycle, and rescuing the abused from their snare by filling them with God’s love and truth.
The abused have been beat down enough. They fight this warfare for years, often decades before reaching out for help. They have been living with the thief who tries to steal and destroy on a daily basis, so they don’t need to be analyzed and sifted. They need to be encouraged in who they are in Christ and taught how to release the sins of others and how to resist the enemy. They need learn how to heal from the damage and lean into the Lord to take back their power.
Jesus demonstrated His love, not by condemnation, but through laying His life down for sinners. He died so the unrighteous could live free from the bondage of their sin. He approached the defeated with grace and love, not by focusing solely on their failures, but by proclaiming who He was and encouraging them with who they could become through Him.
Struggling people don’t need to be nitpicked to death. They need to be encouraged and loved back to life.
The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death. – Proverbs 13:14
There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. – Proverbs 12:18
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. – 1 Thessalonians 5:14
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. – Ephesians 4:29
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34:18
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. – Psalm 103:6
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. – Psalm 82:4
Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. – Proverbs 24:11
