Bah! Humbug!
Yes, I said it. Bah! Humbug! There will be people in your life who feel this way. Not everyone has the ability to fully release themselves into the Christmas season. Life happens and when it does people need to be allowed to be real. We have so many fake people in the Church. They plaster on a face and pretend that everything is wonderful. But in reality, they are falling apart and just moments away from an emotional collapse. We don’t like to admit this in Church. We teach people that you have to have it all together all the time. This is a lie. You are a real person with real emotions that come from God. And sometimes those emotions need to be expressed.
There will be times when your emotions are out of sync with the seasons that God brings to your life. This does not make you less of a child of God. This makes you the person that God created you to be. We have been processing a lot of bad things. Some things we knew were coming, some things we had no idea were out there and they knocked us down. You cannot pretend that the knock down did not occur. It did. You got knocked down. You need to process this through your emotions and move on. There will be times in your life where you will have to say Bah! Humbug! It’s okay to do this.
We need to give people the grace they need to move through the challenges of life. Perry Stone Jr, recently posted his testimony on Facebook on November 29, 2021. He said the following, “Emotional Healing… I have been in physical, emotional, and mental recovery now for over fifteen months. The Doctors and specialists who counsel said it would take about a year or longer for my nervous system and body to heal if I took care of myself. Then after getting hit with the flu and COVID, the fatigue took its toll for some time.” This was a real-life experience that he had. This was a Bah! Humbug! Moment.
Some in the Body of Christ are dealing with similar situations. Instead of shunning them, we need to pray for them. The phrase “Bah! Humbug!” became famous through the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens timeless classic, A Christmas Carol. The word “Bah!” is simply a demonstration of contempt. The word “Humbug” is used to suggest fraud. In the context of the story from A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, considers the celebration of Christmas, and all the festivities associated with it, to be a total sham. Look around you and see that there are people in your life who are in this stage. They are hurting.
Let’s look at this from a different perspective. For some people the Christmas season encompasses a lot of heartache and heartbreak that can be extremely unbearable. They were already having a hard time with life, now everything has to be happy, happy, joy, joy. There is no outlet for these people to get relief. These people may be proclaiming internally “Bah! Humbug!” These are points of pain that some people do not know how to cope with or move through. Many people are working through grief due to the loss of a loved one, they may be going through a divorce, they may be experiencing a physical illness, or suffering from some type of financial hardship. This is real pain. And sometimes this pain does not just disappear. It can linger in some people’s lives for an extended period of time.
Sit in this for a moment. Really take some time to think this through. Have you poo pooed someone’s pain? Have you brushed over that pain and not ministered to them as Jesus would minister to them? Life is real. We need to be real with people and help them through their pain. This one needs help and needs to be healed. No matter what the emotional difficulty we should find it in our hearts to minister to their point of pain. We as the body of Christ must acknowledge that many people right now are hurting and they have no idea when this is going to stop. You’re going to encounter those who have dealt with severe traumas and extreme difficulties throughout their lives. They look strong but they are just one push away from going over the cliff. We have an opportunity to take the truth of the gospel to them. We can take these opportunities and bring them up into God’s stature and ways. God has said He wants us to rejoice in this season.
With this understanding we must take into consideration those who find it difficult to rejoice. We must not look down upon them. We must try to understand where they’re at and meet them to help bring them up out of the pit that they have found themselves in. If you’ve never been through the valley or suffered a deep emotional loss it is important for you not to trample on these ones that have. It’s easy to say just get over it. It’s easy to say I’m praying for you in a flippant tone not considering all that they have been through.
No, God doesn’t want them to stay there. He doesn’t want you to reject them. He wants us to learn how to minister to them in such a way that it will break down and destroy that “Bah! Humbug!” that is in their spirit man. This will give them the desire that they need to cry out to God and to begin that relationship with Him that He desires for them to have.
We must allow the Holy Spirit to minister to those who are walking through depression and anxiety. There will be times where it will take deliverance; there will be times where it will take a deep anointing from an altar call; and there will be times where all it will take is a simple act of kindness like a kind embrace. This embrace will destroy everything the enemy has set up in a person’s life.
We have to use wisdom. We need to know when to apply the tools that God has given to us. Failure to comprehend the proper time and season may cause someone to stumble and even lose out on their freedom with God. God is teaching us by the Spirit. If you know someone with a “Bah! Humbug” in their Spirit ask the Lord to help you understand them. You just might be the key to bringing them out of the pain that they are going through. Selah.