Side Effects of the Proud Heart: Slanderous Words

Brawling and the use of slanderous words often spring up in the proud heart. We brought James Buckley, one of our staff members, to help paint a picture for how our self-life can manifest in wicked acts of brawling and slander and how he was set free from this struggle during his time in the Residential Program. (From Episode #426 - Exposing the Pride that Projects a Spiritual Image)

Host: When James was ten, his mother was saved, and for the next few years he gained a small foundation in the Lord. But when he moved in with his father, he soon forsook the spiritual grounding he had received. For the next decade and a half he lived for the pleasures of the world, becoming addicted and arrogantly proud. By God's grace, he moved in with a family in his thirties and they saw his need, and tried to help him get back on track. But living for self all those years took what little faith he had and turned it into a mountain of spiritual pride. Along with it came some daughters of pride: brawling and slander.

James: I suppose after I came to Kentucky, when I was about thirty-one, a family took me in which became a place I could grow in the Lord with them. That's when I was back in Church and wanting to live for the Lord. After a couple years of that, this brawling and slander just manifested, and I unleashed on the husband. I verbally assaulted him with such hateful words, attacking first his role as a father, then as a husband and even as a business owner. But worst of all, as he was pastoring at that time, I even attacked his role as a pastor. His wife was there standing next to him, so I turned to her and unleashed the same hateful, slanderous, words of accusation upon her. It was even to the point where I laid hands on her and pushed her to the ground, as I continued to slander her with a verbal assault. So those are the two instances that I most remember as far as slander and brawling.

And, during the time that I was with this family, for the two years prior to this outburst of brawling and slander, I was regularly involved in ministry. And the more people asked me to be involved with other things, the more I had a sense that I was a very spiritual person. But there was no true repentance that had happened, no inward change had happened, so it was a real example of the hypocrisy that I was in. I was living outwardly what people saw as a good Christian individual. But inwardly there was constantly a desire for the sin of the world, as well as a brewing hatred in my heart, a contempt for others around me. But more specifically for this family because I lived with them, and I suppose I saw their faults. Yet instead of praying mercy for them and loving them the way that they had loved me, I just criticized. Contempt grew, and one day it just all came out.

Host: James talked about how there was no real change in his heart. That hypocrisy fueled the spiritual pride, brawling and slander that surrounded him. But these were just the fruit at the surface. As we've been discussing in this series, James can now testify that there was a much more insidious root behind all of this.  ‍

James: It certainly can be summed up as a love of self. I just wanted to have my own way. I wanted everything to go my way, and so when it didn't it just fostered more hatred, bitterness, and resentment. I had a critical heart. I was full of criticism, judgements and accusations. It was not necessarily voiced to people around me because that would affect my image as a good Christian man. But it was all inside my heart. I think I just thought that I was something more than I was.

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Host: James did come to Pure Life and the Lord did show him the reality of his spiritual condition. But God also did a wonderful work in his heart. James looked to Jesus and truly repented, and this began to play out in his willingness to obey the commands of Jesus.

James: I had thought that the Lord had given me moments of setting me free from it, over the eighteen years that I was with this family. I was active in church for most of that. But it’s when I came to the residential program that I really saw how much spiritual pride that I had. The Lord began to set me free in ways that I didn't know were possible. But in doing them [that is, obeying Jesus’ commands], really there's freedom. What is the primary thing that I found? Simply by praying mercy for others, which is hard to do when you're such a self-absorbed person. But I had done it and I had learned to practice it to some degree. As a result, there was real victory that the Lord gave me, simply by praying mercy for others. It's what we were taught in the residential program. The conscious, deliberate act of asking God to bless another person. Specifically, the person that offended me, or crossed my will. It’s the act of asking God to bless them and provide for their needs, to pour His Spirit out them. This kind of praying for another person really has the capacity to set a person free.

One specific instance of this from when I was in the program came from working alongside one young man in particular. He was maybe twenty-five years my junior, maybe twenty-two years old, and he just grated on me. He was hardheaded himself, like I was, and he wouldn't listen. I really began to frankly hate this young man. It showed in our work. I could feel the hatred growing in me, and dislike of him. I knew and felt the Lord drawing me to pray mercy for Him and even confront him with my sinful heart and ask him for forgiveness. I did that and he received it, and in turn he asked me to forgive him for his own rebellious ways. We had a real reconciling, that the Lord certainly did. So from that day on, we really became close and it was a joy to work with one another.