Bill Harbeck's Blog

One of the subtle dynamics of any function where I present the message of sexual abuse and internet pornography is the silence that comes over the audience.  It doesn’t matter the age, the event, or the constituency.  Silence, a deafening silence, always looms over the crowd.  It is clear that the enemy has effectively manipulated shame into a debilitating and binding emotion.  Shame is at the core and it is the shame that needs to be exposed both by individuals and communities at large. Until the shame is exposed, acknowledged, and addressed all the symptoms of abuse will continue to destroy this world.  As difficult as it is to be exposed to the details and consequences of abuse and shame whether at a banquet or any similar gathering, there is always great joy at the conclusion.  You see, joy comes from the courage to walk into the pain knowing it will be extremely uncomfortable.  Oh, but the courage is rewarded with satisfaction, peace, and energy that makes the journey worth every step.

Not every day you see one of these across the street from the church.   God’s creation is amazing.

Thank you Tresia Mallory.  Thank you Drew Foster and Pleasant View Church.  Thank you North Idaho Christian School.  I had two amazing day with the great folks of Post Falls, and Hayden, Idaho sharing the good news of hope for healing from sexual abuse and Internet Pornography.  I applaud their courage to put this issue out in a public forum.  I heard many stories of the damage this evil has done and is doing in the lives of this community.  I know this is everywhere.  Pray with us as more and more people surrender to the message of hope and leave go of the strangle hold of the enemy.

Blessings to all my new friends in beautiful IDAHO…

I spent the day yesterday with my friend JT.  JT is a professional painter.  I am a friend that went along to….to help.  Throughout the day, JT patiently instructed me on the finer points of the painting profession.  We were working on one of the thousands of foreclosures in the Phoenix area.  The beautiful house is just four years old and the bank decided fresh paint would enhance the saleability.

JT quickly  taught me the art of masking.  He handed me a masking machine and showed me briefly how it worked.  After several attempts I caught on to the nifty little machine and went to work masking while JT headed off to other parts of the  house.  Eight hours later as I stood looking at the finished product another one of those aha moments came over me.  It’s all in the Masking.  JT has this paint spraying machine that puts paint on hundreds of square feet in minutes.  And when it is finished it looks amazing.  But if it weren’t for the masking…the hours of masking to protect windows, and door handles, and light fixtures in seconds the paint sprayer would created ten times the amount of work.  My meticulous time-consuming work would have been for naught.

You get it….it’s all in the masking.  I am leaving today for a week of speaking, counseling, and teaching in the Northwest.  Without the years of preparation, the hours of studying, and the days of prayer, the few minutes with people will fall flat.  Prayer is the masking of the spiritual world we travel.  Painstaking hours of time that prepare us for those important moments when our Lord comes along with the sprayer and finishes the job.

Pray for us this week.   I a traveling a  lot and Jill is putting together the final touches for our first praise banquet.  The enemy is very strong and we NEED prayer friends and warriors to keep evil covered.  It’s all in the masking.

Oprah…Tyler Perry…Senator Scott Brown…Chris Fabry Live…Josh McDowell…Focus on the Family…what’s going on.  There appears to be a rush to the camera to share the horrors of chidhood sexual abuse.  Where is this coming from?

The silence of shame is destructive.  We may be witnessing the cultural explosion of years of shame.  When silenced, shame slowly grows within a soul.  The growth goes unnoticed.  In secret the soul grows darker and larger and without warning over time, with no place to go it explodes. There are all kinds of consequences to the explosion;  suicide, substance abuse, divorce, violence.   Or that same explosion can bring relief, peace, joy, and hope.  Either outcome requires intervention. On the one hand we have recovery programs,  prisons, and morgues.  On the other hand, friends, spouses, and the Savior of the world.

We can pray that what we are witnessing is the explosion of the culture.  People, significant people with platforms, willingly speaking out about abuse.  Individual explosions triggering a cultural explosion.  So, what are we going to do about it?  The explosion is just the beginning.  For individuals and the society there is going to be an overwhelming need for safety zones.  Places where survivors can run to, and heal from the open wound in their soul.  A movement that will demonstrate to the world that the only hope for healing rests in the wounded hands of the God Man.  Are we ready for what’s coming?  Let’s pray that millions have the courage to step up and speak out.  Then pray for those who have survived to begin picking through the rubble for fellow survivors.  The day is at hand. It demands our attention and our courage.

“As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

Thank goodness the scourge of leprosy is not with us today.  However, the attitude that was directed toward the condition by the community remains. The lepers were the outcasts of all outcasts relegated to the fringe of society, ostracized and rejected.  Today they are called sex offenders.  Instead of screaming Unclean, they are posted on the media for all to see and avoid.   They are considered irredeemable, mentally flawed, and dangerous.  Today, if one of them were to walk up to Jesus and say, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean” would that change our perception?

The Lord is moving in the ministry and doors may be opening to reach into the modern-day leper community.  They are segregated in the prison system.  They are required to submit to lengthy codes of restriction out of prison that often are so rigid they must return for failure to meet the requirements.  Churches will not allow them to worship in their communities.  They are unclean.

Pray for us.  We may have the opportunity soon to enter the sex offender yards in the prison facilities.   I may be able to begin classes for offenders recently released from prison to uncover the deep wounds most of them suffered as children.  Pray for my motives.  Henri Nouwen said this, “I am quite willing to work for or even with little people, but I want it to be a great event!  Something in me always wants to turn the way of Jesus into a way that is honorable in the eyes of the world.  I always want the little way to become the big way.  But Jesus’ movement toward the places the world wants to move away from cannot be made into a success story.  Every time we think we have touched a place of poverty, we will discover greater poverty beyond that place.  There really is no way back to riches, wealth, success, acclaim, prizes.  Beyond physical poverty there is mental poverty, beyond mental poverty there is spiritual poverty, and beyond that there is nothing, nothing but the naked truth that God is mercy”.

Oh by the way,  Jesus answered the lepers question.

12:03 am  February 20th, the Lord answered our prayers.  My son and daughter in law have endured nine months of a high risk pregnancy and last night a beautiful little girl joined us all in this journey.  4 lbs 13 oz…Praise the Name of the Lord…welcome Londyn or Lucy…still working on the name…

Day after day after day…

“As you see more clearly that your vocation is to be a witness to God’s love in this world, and as you become more determined to live out that vocation, the attacks of the enemy will increase.  You will hear voices saying, “You are worthless, you have nothing to offer, you are unattractive, undesirable, unlovable.”  The more you sense God’s call, the more you will discover in your own soul the cosmic battle between God and Satan.  Do not be afraid.  Keep deepening your conviction that God’s love for you is enough, that you are in safe hands, and that you are being guided every step of the way.  Don’t be surprised by the demonic attacks.  They will increase, but as you fact them without fear, you will discover that they are powerless.

What is important is to keep clinging to the real, lasting, and unambiguous love of Jesus.  Whenever you doubt that love, return to your inner spiritual home and listen there to love’s voice.  Only when you know in your deepest being that you are intimately loved can you face the dark voices of the enemy without being seduced by them.

The love of Jesus will give you an ever-clearer vision of your call as well as of the many attempts to pull you away from that call.  The more you are called to speak for God’s love, the more you will need to deepen the knowledge of that love in your own heart.  The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.  Only when your roots are deep can your fruits be abundant.  The enemy is there, waiting to destroy you, but you can face the enemy without fear when you believe that you are held safe in the love of Jesus.”   Henri Nouwen

Four Days…Seven Venues…a remarkable experience.  It is nearly three years since we began the ministry and this weekend gave me renewed hope that the doors may be opening a little to the word.  THANK YOU Dave Little for your perseverance, vision, and determination to get the message out to Lancaster County Pennsylvania.  Dave single handily arranged all seven speaking opportunities for the ministry throughout the county, drove me to all the sights, and made the experience memorable.

On each occasion I met with survivors and strugglers that were excited that the issue was finally spoken of in a public setting.  Each story is painful; more discouraging knows that they have been holding it inside. For 55 years in the Christian community I have never heard this message in a Christian setting, church, chapel, seminar, small group on and on and yet in every venue this weekend the silence of the audience, and the response is clear…this is rampant,  this is hidden, and this is destroying lives by the thousands.  The intensity and pervasiveness of Internet Pornography is mind-boggling.   WE HAVE THE ANSWER.  Jesus holds the power of sin and death and over the fear within the church universal to acknowledge it, confront it, and work to heal the broken.  Church communities have not and do not confront this disease in an intentional and detailed manner.  The silence or passing mention, allows the enemy to spread this beneath the surface at light speed.  Shock and awe prevail when a man or leader in the church is found in “moral failure”.  IT IS A PLAGUE we refuse to admit exists in public and are failing to attack.

I am energized to continue to develop a healing approach and outreach to the ones we meet.  I am frustrated and discouraged by the apathy and fear to engage the truth.  I commend Pastor Galen Hackman and his courageous congregation at the Ephrata Church of the Brethren in Ephrata Pennsylvania.  Pastor Hackman interrupted his six part series to allow me to share with his congregation on a Sunday morning knowing very little about me.  What a morning.  The tears, the messages, the stories go on and on from just that church.  Their community is facing the truth and will begin to know what it will take to heal.  Better, they will know the joy that comes from the freedom they gain in Christ and his unending forgiveness.  You can hear the Sunday sermon at Ephrata Church at www.ephratabrethren.org under the Worship Banner, Sermon Archives, Jan. 23, 2011

Holding on to Hope has two seminars coming up open to the public.  The first is February 19^th at the Embassy Suites North in Phoenix, I-17 and Greenway.  The second is on March 5^th at the Mesa Convention Center.  Both seminars begin at 7:30 am.  The ministry is also hosting the first recovery weekend for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse March 25-27.  Call 623-341-5792 to sign up today for the retreat.

I encourage you to confront your community leadership with the desire to make this a priority issue soon in your body.  It would be great if you attacked it on your own.  If not, we are available to begin the process.  You will be overwhelmed and energized to see the King defeat evil.  Call us today. 623-341-5792.  www.holdingontohope.org

Pray for us…the enemy is very strong this week…

Who is going to take care of the healing now in Tucson?  The hope is that there is one person that will walk with every individual that has been wounded deeply.  Just ten days after the shooting behavior demonstrates why true healing will be difficult.

Injury and death occur every day in this world.  However, when persons of interest are involved or there is a mass shooting the response and reaction is put on display for the world to observe. The grieving process becomes public. The initial response is a consistent pattern of shock, anger, and resignation. Many emotions are packed into a brief period of time from death to burial.  When the week is up it’s all about getting back to normal. That is a noble desire, but this is a wound to the soul and nothing will be the same.

The healing process of a wounded soul is lengthy and unpredictable.  Grieving is different for each person.  The families of the victims in Tucson will find it difficult to move on today and in the weeks ahead and just get over it.  While public attention will fade quickly time will move slowly for the wounded. 

True healing for the soul is about a personal relationship.  Someone has to walk alongside the wounded one, through the pain.  It takes a long time, genuine commitment, and true compassion.  At best, it takes a fellow survivor.  Can the government provide that?  Can psychologists, psychiatrists, or counselors?  What about the church?  Healing will come when fellow wounded travelers, of which we all are, determine to travel the road with those most recently injured and understand it will require a lot of time, a willingness to sacrifice personal needs, and compassion that will mean hurting together in the walk.  It could be weeks, months, and maybe years. Deep, deep wounds to the soul may never heal.   

Until the nation, the churches, and all of us understand the magnitude of damage done in the injury of the soul and the requirements for genuine healing, there will continue to be momentary obligatory attempts to heal that will fall far short of what hearts need.  Universally we must see the need, surrender the self, and walk with the wounded…however long it takes.  It can only be done, soul with soul.