3 Ways to Not Let Your History Control Your Destiny

/2 Comments/in , , , , /by

Our destiny is the adventure God created us to live. Yet so many of us are not living it, and our history is why—all the wounding, trauma, pain—and the fear it brings. The good news is our history does not have to control our destiny. Jesus is bigger than your fear, and he wants to heal your pain.

To keep us from that healing, our enemy wants us to live in our pain. Forever. He’s terrified of us living our God-given adventure. If we do that, his kingdom of darkness will take major hits and there’s nothing he can do about it. His only hope is to be pre-emptive. That’s why you feel so much fear and spiritual resistance whenever you start to move in your calling.

Our enemy’s strategy is, “I will wound them with so much trauma that the overwhelming pain and resultant fear keeps them from ever moving into the life God created them to live.” Those are the components of the enemy’s strategy: Trauma, causing pain, causing fear, which keeps us stuck. And that’s his goal—to keep us stuck in the pain, never moving into the adventure God has for us. Because he’s terrified of that.

It’s a diabolically brilliant plan. It works on every one of us, taking us hostage to fear. He’s got just one little problem though: The cross. The empty tomb. The love of a relentless God who just won’t stop meddling with things.

Actually, it’s a big problem. The blood of Jesus demolishes all the structures, lies, and plans of our enemy over our lives. The power of the love of God is stronger than the power of the trauma, pain, and fear in our lives.

But we have a choice. The Holy Spirit won’t just burst his healing into our lives like Satan did with trauma and sin. God loves and trusts us enough to honor our choice. Our healing is a partnership with Jesus. It’s our choice.

So here are 3 ways to partner with God and not let your history control your destiny.

1) Decide to Not Play the Victim

Enough is enough already. I’m sick of the pain and wounding in my life, and I pray you are too. The first step in getting free is deciding we want to be free. It’s acknowledging the pain in our lives and believing God can heal it.

2) Get Healing

Step 2 is to proactively get healing. We need to seek it out, and actively take steps to pursue our healing. Healing comes in many forms. For some of us, it’s counseling. For others, deliverance. And then there’s inner healing, prayer ministry, or medication. For most of us, it’s going to be a unique combination of the above.

Some of us need medication first to level us out enough so we can receive counseling, inner healing, and/or prayer ministry effectively. Some of us need deliverance or prayer ministry first.

It may take several tries until we find the counselor, pastor, prayer minister, and/or doctor that work for us. That’s normal. Keep trying.

Pro Tip: Ask to sign releases so your pastor, counselor, prayer minister, and/or doctor can talk to each other. You want everybody on your team on the same page. That doesn’t just happen by chance. Be proactive. Ask them to call each other and talk about your case.

3) Limit Negative Influences in Your Life

Misery loves company. The only thing worse than being miserable is being miserable alone. Some friends are just toxic, and they need to go. People who identify with you because your wounding matches theirs may not be happy when you get healthy.

I know a young woman who has a very difficult relationship with her godly parents. A few years ago, through interventive counseling and prayer ministry initiated by her parents, she was on the verge of a breakthrough and healing in that important relationship. But she had a friend who has a bad relationship with her own toxic parents. This friend sabotaged the young woman’s healing. Who else would the friend commiserate with if the young woman got healing?

“Bearing your heart to your hurting friends is not helping. Because all they do is accommodate you in your pain and understand it. You call that sensitivity; I call it enablement.” –Dan Mohler

When someone resents or downplays our healing, that’s a sign that friendship is unhealthy. The young woman would have been better off pulling away from that friend. But because her healing was hi-jacked, she’s now into decades of total estrangement from her parents.

But what do you do if you’re married to the negative influence?

I know someone who, every time they get inspired to move forward in their calling, excitedly talks to their spouse about it. This spouse is like a wet blanket. Their response is always, “Ok that’s great, but…” And they point out the difficulties, issues, or obstacles. The result is the person either doesn’t move forward at all, or moves forward in a limited way.

Now, yes, there’s a balance here. When you share an idea or a plan, most people will just say, “Wow, that’s great!” and won’t share any checks they have in their spirit about it. You want someone in your life who will tell you what no one else will.

Spouses are great for this. A healthy spouse is a great sounding board. While they tell you the obstacles they see that maybe you don’t, they are willing to help you work through them. If your spouse is truly supportive, you’ll come away from the conversation feeling encouraged, not discouraged. You’ll feel empowered, not limited. They are excited about you moving forward, not threatened by it.

If, maybe out of their own wounding, they are consistently a wet blanket of negativity, talking to them is not helping you. You are stuck with a significant negative influence in your life. You need to realize this and acknowledge it.

A negative reaction typically comes from fear. Because of their wounding, your vision is scary or intimidating to them. But you are not helpless. You need to find a way to share it that is less scary. And you can.

If you need ideas for dealing with this situation, download our free guide “7 Ways to Deal with a Wet Blanket Spouse.”

Download the Guide
“7 Ways to Deal with a
Wet Blanket Spouse”

Do not accept it like it’ll never change. Don’t let your spouse be your excuse for not walking into your destiny. That’s not fair to either of you.

Your Turn

So how about it? We want to help you walk out of your history and into your destiny. What in your past has kept, or is keeping, you stuck? How did you walk, or are walking, out of it? Tell us in the comments—your story and vulnerability will help others. Or shoot us an email [LINK http://identityinwholeness.com/contact-us/] if it’s too personal. We’d love to hear from you. And please share this post on social media to bless others.

How to Unlearn the Church’s Worst Habit

/6 Comments/in , , /by

Loving Jesus, I love God’s people. I love the church. This is not a church bashing post. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that going around. It’s always easier to attack someone else’s faults than deal with our own, and sometimes the church is an easy target.

So while I love the church, there’s something we need to talk about. Can we have a family meeting? The church has a nasty habit we need to unlearn.

We all say we want the church to be a safe place, a strong tower people can run to in the midst of their brokenness. A safe place for people to repent and come to Jesus. A safe place to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). But is the church a safe place for people to make mistakes?

The church’s worst habit is throwing out everything someone has ever said or done, or will say or do in the future, because of one mistake. Let’s look at a current example.

Cancel Culture Christianity

Many voices have recently given prophetic words about the recent presidential election in the United States that don’t appear to be happening. And many in the church are verbally shooting them for it. Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you’re on, that’s not ok.

The pagans do this. It’s called Cancel Culture. A celebrity makes an insensitive tweet, and they get fired from their sitcom. Their concert gets cancelled. Their speaking gigs get canceled. “They made a mistake! How dare they! Off with their head!” This just makes everyone live in fear. But the church is called to freedom. We need to stop “cancel culturing” our prophetic voices if they make a mistake.

Do we realize how much courage it takes to put yourself out there and give a prophetic word? To share with others, especially on the dangerous Internet, what you think God is showing you? Do you know how embarrassing it is to share, “I think God is telling me this,” and have it not happen? Prophetic voices are taking a huge risk! Courage and vulnerability are godly qualities we should be encouraging.

Yes, we also want to encourage accuracy. So what do we do with prophetic words that don’t happen?

(1) Let it play out without judgement. For the current prophecies about the election, although at the time of this writing it’s looking bleak for some prophetic words, the jury’s still out. Anything can happen over the next month or two. Wait until it’s an absolute impossibility before judging. (Please don’t get hung up or triggered on politics; this is not a political post. That’s just an example.)

People who don’t believe in prophecy jump on the bandwagon whenever a prophecy goes awry. “See, I knew it all the time! I knew they were a false prophet, that all this prophetic stuff was hogwash” This negative pre-judgement reveals more about the person judging than the person who missed the prophetic word.

God doesn’t wait for us to make a mistake so he can say, “See, I knew it all the time!” So let’s stop treating each other like that.

(2) Don’t reject the person as a false prophet. I’m talking about people rooted in Jesus, loving Jesus, who just missed it. I’m not talking about people who encourage others to sin, or condone immoral lifestyles that break God’s heart. Those are the “false prophets” the Old Testament has strong admonitions for.

Here are some true prophets in the Bible who actually missed it. (Taken from a great Intercessors for America article, here.)

  • Nathan. David wants to build the Lord’s temple, and Nathan wrongly tells him to go for it. The Lord later sends Nathan back to David with a correction; Solomon is to build the temple, not David. (2 Samuel 7:1-13)
  • Agabus. He bound his own hands with Paul’s belt, and told Paul, “In this way the Jews will bind the owner of this belt” (Acts 21:10-11). Although Paul was bound, it was by the Romans not the Jews (Acts 21:33). Agabus got it mostly right, but missed a detail. Prophetic voices today do the same thing. That does not make them false prophets any more than it did Agabus.

(3) Consider the conditions. Now, yes, sometimes people add conditions after-the-fact as a way to blame shift when they miss it, and that hurts their credibility. But sometimes prophetic words come with legitimate conditions. If we as the people of God respond in a certain way, often repentance, then God will do something. We shouldn’t discount the prophetic word if we didn’t fulfill the conditions.

(4) Consider the timing. Also consider the timing. Joseph and David were both given prophesies decades before they were fulfilled. Maybe the person giving the prophetic word wasn’t wrong. Maybe they were just early.

(5) Be teachable and admit mistakes. On the prophetic side, we need to admit it when we miss it. I know getting tarred & feathered by the rest of the church can make this difficult and scary. It’s embarrassing. But it’s the right thing to do. It’s ok to say, “I don’t know what happened. I thought it was God, but I guess I missed it.”

And to the rest of the church, enough with the witch hunts already! Put down your pitchforks, and let’s encourage people genuinely trying to hear God, like we all should be, to try again.

Mistakes are not sin. Mistakes are learning.

Recently, Kris Vallotton from Bethel apologized for a prophetic word he believes he missed. That took a lot of guts and humility! Regardless of whether you believe in modern-day prophecy or not, regardless of what you think of Bethel, we should commend him for this. Rather than saying, “See, I knew it all the time!” we should commend him for having the humility to admit what he believes was a mistake.

Fallen Christian Leaders

Recently, some high-profile Christian leaders have walked away from Christianity. What do we do with that? Don’t throw out every book or song they’ve ever written. It doesn’t mean nothing they ever did was anointed by the Holy Spirit. It means Satan is having a field day in their lives right now. Pray for them, don’t gloat over them. “See, I knew it all the time!” Don’t do that.

I went to a church for a long time where the pastor had an affair. Anyone who knows me knows how strongly I feel about sexual purity. I wrote a book on it. But I learned about the Holy Spirit in that church. I learned how to worship there. I got so much from his teaching and grew so much in that church.

That pastor’s sin does not invalidate the good God did in my life through him and his ministry. We need to realize the calling of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life is greater than their mistakes, even greater than their sin.

Yes, we should call out mistakes, especially public ones that could harm others and lead them astray. But let’s stop throwing out everything someone has ever done or said, past, present, and future, because they made a mistake. Or even sinned. God doesn’t treat us that way. Let’s stop doing it to each other.

Your Turn

So what do you think? Please share your thoughts and story in the comments. And please share this post to bless others.

Why Life is Sacred and What that Even Means

/12 Comments/in , , /by

Sacred. What does that word even mean? We hardly use it anymore today. It sounds like a vegetable. “Yeah, we just planted some sacred between the beets and the squash.” But it’s a very important word. Because life is sacred. When our hearts lose the truth of that last sentence, we descend into the very worst of humanity. But when we live that truth, we reflect the best.

Google says sacred means:

  • Connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.
  • Religious rather than secular.
  • Of writing or text, embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion.

Wrong. That’s not even right! We totally don’t know what the word even means anymore. Sacred is not just a synonym for religious.

Wikipedia’s Sacred page starts with: “Sacred means revered due to sanctity and is generally the state of being perceived by religious individuals as associated with divinity and considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspiring awe or reverence among believers. Objects are often considered sacred if used for spiritual purposes, such as the worship or service of gods.”

Wrong again. “Sacred means revered due to sanctity”? That’s a circular definition! At best, Wikipedia makes it sound irrelevant to everyday life. But nothing could be more relevant to life than an understanding, at the heart level, of this word.

Yes, both Google and Wikipedia capture the way the word is often used, but that’s not what it means. It is used in these ways because of what it means. So let’s find out what it really means.

Merriam-Webster reaches back a little further than the birth of the Internet. While listing similar definitions to Google and Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster also says this, which is the real definition of sacred:

  • Entitled to reverence and respect
  • Highly valued and important

Sacred is often used for religious meanings because we traditionally have considered God, and the things of God, worthy of respect and highly important. But sacred really means entitled to and worthy of reverence and respect, highly valued and important. Irreplaceable. Something you don’t mess with.

That’s your life. That’s my life. That’s our lives. That’s all human life. Human life is sacred, not to be messed with, because we’re created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27). None of the animals were, only people. We alone are this unique blend of physical and spiritual life.

Human life is sacred. You don’t mess with it. When we forget this truth, or ignore it, we make devastating consequences for ourselves. We deal ourselves a huge loss.

During her American visit in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton was president, Mother Teresa was asked by Hillary Clinton, “Why haven’t we had a women president yet?” Mother Teresa didn’t even blink, “She was probably aborted.” HRC was not amused.

Every life has a tree of life attached to it. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. And that’s just heredity. Think about impact. We all touch thousands of lives. That touch matters, for good or ill. Those lives will never be the same.

Who’s inspired you? Who has pulled you back from the brink? A parent? A teacher? A coach? An author? A friend? Where would you be if that life never existed?

It’s a Wonderful Life, the black ‘n’ white movie with Jimmy Stewart, is more than just a drippy Christmas movie. It’s an amazing example of this concept. You know the story. George Bailey, at the height of his despair over his own failed life, gets the tremendous gift of seeing what the world would be like without him. Turns out he’s not a failure after all. His life held back tremendous evil in his town, hugely affecting everyone in ways they would never know. Hundreds of men would’ve died on the other side of the world during WWII, because his medal-of-honor war hero brother wasn’t there to save them, because George wasn’t there to save him when he fell through the ice when they were children. Every life matters.

Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

The worst of humanity comes out when we lose sight of this truth. The Nazis. ISIS. North Korea. Stalin’s purges in the old Soviet Union. Abortion.

We’ve lost over 60 million lives due to abortion in America alone (which is a small number compared to the rest of the world). To put it in perspective, the Holocaust was 18 million. Our numbers are 3 times that, and counting.

If you count not just the deaths, but the devastation left in abortion’s wake, it’s at least 180 million. Because there’s a mother whose maternal nurturing identity was devastated with the death of her child. There’s a father whose paternal provider/protector identity was cut to the heart, replaced by a false identity of failure. And we haven’t counted grandparents or siblings yet, who also lost a family member.

The lie in the culture is about quality of life over sanctity of life. Do any of these lies sound familiar?

“It was for the best, she’s got three kids on welfare already.” It doesn’t matter how poor the mother is. Do we really believe only rich people deserve to live? I thought money couldn’t buy happiness?

“The ultrasound and amniocentesis show the baby has Down’s syndrome. You should abort.” Have you ever known a child with Down’s syndrome? I have. These precious children bless the lives of everyone who meets them. Yet some countries have aborted almost every one of them, to their great loss. The eugenicists of the ‘20s would be so proud. God forgive us and lead us to repent.

“She had her whole life ahead of her. She had to abort. Now she can go to college and her life can get back to normal.” Had to abort? That doesn’t sound like a choice. The truth is, her life will never get back to “normal,” whatever that means. Once she’s pregnant, she’s a mother. She can either be a mother who has a child, or a mother who lost one. But she will never again not be a mother.

All of these common excuses for abortion reflect quality of life, not sanctity of life. Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

If one life, especially the most vulnerable—the unborn who have no voice of their own to stand up for themselves—is not valued, then no one’s life is safe.

The culture of death does not stop with abortion. It starts there. Here’s the slippery slope:

  • Abortion
  • Assisted suicide
  • Euthanasia for the comatose
  • Euthanasia for the elderly
  • Euthanasia for the disabled
  • Euthanasia for the “undesirables”
  • The Final Solution

Sound familiar? Have you seen this movie? Haven’t we already had this nightmare? How many times do we have to stumble blindly down this road?

Let’s not let history repeat itself again. We can stop this.

Speak up for life. Support your local crisis pregnancy center. Help an unwed mother. Be the change we want to see. God will always strengthen us for this and answer that prayer. Perhaps we were born for such a time as this.

If you have had an abortion, or fathered an aborted child, get healing. Jesus loves you and has so much healing for you, but you can’t walk through it yourself. You need help, and it’s so available, just waiting for you. Here are some resources to help you find a Christ-centered, post-abortive recovery program in your area. And if you can’t find one, email us. We’ll walk through it with you.

http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/weekend/sites.aspx

http://hopeafterabortion.com

https://optionline.org/after-abortion-support

http://afterabortion.org/help-healing

https://www.healingafterabortion.org/mission–vision-statement.html

So who’s made a significant impact in your life? Where would you be if that person wasn’t there? Tell us in the comments. And please share on social media if you think this post would bless someone els

How to Live Beyond Happiness–In Deep Joy from Your Spirit

/6 Comments/in , , /by

What is Deep Joy anyway? Sometimes it’s easier to explain what a thing is not, so let’s start there. Deep Joy is not happiness. Deep Joy is so much better than mere happiness.

Happiness is situational. When circumstances are great, we’re happy. When they’re not, we’re not happy. Happiness is based on circumstances, and therefore is out of our control. Happiness is from the outside in.

But we buy the culture’s lie that we can control our happiness. We just have to do one simple thing:

  • “Buy this widget!”
  • “Read this book!”
  • “Get that next promotion!”
  • “Work harder! Try harder! Play harder! Go, go, go!”
  • “You just need a relationship!”
  • “Just have enough sex!”

Sound familiar? How many of us live chasing these elusive lies?

Hint: If you live for “that next thing”—the better job, the faster car, the bigger house, the next relationship—you’re living for happiness. And happiness never arrives. There’s always one more thing.

Chasing happiness is like buying your life from a used-car dealer—it’s just never going to live up to the marketing hype. And then we get cynical out of anger at ourselves for having believed the lie. The wounding silences our spirit. We start protecting our heart by living out of our soul.

And then our definition of happiness changes to “just not feeling the pain.” Living out of our soul, we exist to quiet the pain we pretend we don’t hear but just won’t shut up.

One of the dumbest things I often hear my fellow parents say is, “I just want my kids to be happy.” Honestly, I want to smack them. I don’t want my kids to be unhappy, but I want so much more for them than happiness. I want them to live in Deep Joy.

Don’t get me wrong—happiness isn’t bad. Personally, I like happiness; I’ll take it. But I love Deep Joy.

Deep Joy is from the inside out. It’s an inner fulfillment that’s independent of your surrounding circumstances. You can be unhappy and in pain, because your outward circumstances stink, but still have Deep Joy and light radiating from your inner being. Regardless of your circumstances, living in Deep Joy leaves you fulfilled and satisfied, always with something to give others. But it comes from your spirit. You can’t get there living out of your soul.

So here’s the deal. We are three-part beings—body, soul, and spirit. Our soul is our mind, will, and emotions.

So often, because of the hurts we’ve received in this life from other wounded people, our hurt and our wounding take over and we live from our soul instead of from our spirit. When we live from our soul, either our mind or our emotions are in charge.

When our mind is in charge, we think we’ll be safe if we have it all figured out. We are in control. Nothing happens without a plan, without our pre-approval. We deceive ourselves into thinking we can push down the pain if we’re in control. We can become a sterile shell of a person. We look great on the outside and fool everyone else, but inside we’re empty and hurting.

When our emotions are in charge, we’re focused on what will make us happy in this moment, ignoring the long-term consequences. We lose our grasp on cause ‘n’ effect. We can get into addictions—food, drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, TV—whatever makes us feel “happy” (i.e., not in pain) at the moment. We know the pain is crouching ready to pounce at any moment, but we delay it for just one more instant.

Too many Christians live out one of these two tragedies. That’s because, even though we’re forgiven, we’re not healed. And there’s a mile of difference between being forgiven and being healed.

Living from our soul is not life, it’s just existence. But Jesus died (and lives!) so we can have abundant life. He said himself, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly!” (John 10:10)

When we live from our spirit, our will is in charge. Our spirit is connected to Jesus, the author of Deep Joy, who sets the direction for our life. From our will, we choose to believe His promises instead of believing our own fear and pain. Our emotions, like pain sensors in our body, are there to tell us when we’re hurting, but they should never set our direction. Our mind is there to devise a good, solid plan for going where our will chooses to go, but it should never set our direction.

So here’s three practical steps for living in Deep Joy from your spirit. You can do these all at the same time or in any order. Often they repeat throughout our life and go deeper each time around.

1) Settle the Question.

Deep Joy (fulfillment and satisfaction independent of circumstances that overflow your spirit) only come from one place—relationship with Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He wants to be so much more than your Savior. He wants to be your Lover-King.

Have you, or will you, say “yes” to making him Lord of your life? Is there some area of your life where he’s not Lord? Are you willing to give that area (maybe your whole life) to him? Not because you have to, because you want to, because you’re blown away by his love for you. If you haven’t reached that point yet, that’s ok. Ask him every day to make his love real to you. And then hold on, because here it comes.

2) Go to the Pain.

Instead of letting your mind or your emotions protect you from the pain, choose to go to the pain.

Cattle run away from thunderstorms, but because the storm’s moving the same direction, they get soaked a lot longer trying to avoid it. But buffalo run straight into the thunderstorm. Moving in the opposite direction, they get through it must faster.

“Embrace the fireball of pain,” like John Sandford said. Go there and explore it with your spouse, your pastor, a counselor, a trusted friend, and most of all with Jesus. Let him bring healing and help you forgive. This is a process, be gentle with yourself. But go there. You were created to be brave. You and Jesus can do this.

3) Replace the Lies with the Truth.

The pain has such a grip on us because we’ve believed a lot of lies. But lies are built on a house of cards and replacing them with God’s truth blows them away. Sometimes getting one promise of God into your spirit can topple decades of lies.

For example, I believed no one would ever love me. That lie led me to make some really poor choices in my life, even as a life-long Christian. But I’m replacing it with God’s truth, Psalm 139. (In particular, verse14, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Verse 17, “How precious about me are your thoughts, O God.” Verse 5, “You have laid your hand upon me.” And many more.)

When the lie invades your mind, whack it over the head by saying out-loud, even if you’re just whispering to yourself, “I take that thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), and I choose to believe ____.” Fill in the blank with your promise(s) from God. I found mine in Psalm 139. Where are yours? Here’s another promise of mine, and many other people, whose lies tell them they’ve fallen too far to be redeemable:

Jesus gives me a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of despair, and a garment of praise instead of mourning. (Isaiah 61:3)

Beauty for ashes, gladness for despair, and praise for mourning. I love it! That’s where my Deep Joy comes from.

So how about you? Does this resonate with you? Will you live out of Deep Joy instead of chasing elusive happiness? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share on social media if this would bless someone else.

4 Steps to Authentic Relationships

/5 Comments/in , , /by

This morning, as I look out on our deck, I see a glorious new day with radiant sunshine. It speaks of promise. Each day brings beauty and the prospect of hope.

However, the visual beauty is marred by something ugly. As someone who finds beauty restorative, I find this disturbing. You see, I love my flower boxes on the railing around our deck. They bring such beauty with colors of pink and purple. Unfortunately, the critters, namely squirrels, mess with my flowers. They tear up my beautiful petunias much to my consternation. So, in fighting back to protect my territory, I put netting and cages around my flower boxes.

Well, there’s good and bad here. This sort of worked. It is a deterrent to those pesky squirrels, but, boy, do they look ugly! These cages I built to keep stuff out is ruining the lovely view I want.

As I mediated on this image this morning, I couldn’t help but think of how inner vows we make in life are like those cages. Yes, they keep us in prison. Really??? Wow! Who knew? I thought I was protecting myself from those things that would hurt me, but in the process, good, healthy relationship has been shut out also.

So what is an inner vow? Inner vows often use the words “always” and “never.”

  • “I will never be angry like my mom. Emotions are bad. I will always stay in control.”
  • “I will always be a good girl and never make anyone upset.”
  • “I will never allow anyone close enough to hurt me.”
  • “I will always be the good guy. I will make you love me.”
  • “I will always avoid conflict and be the peace keeper.”

Inner vows keep us in a cage that, while beautifully decorated on the inside, is very lonely.

So how does that work? Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s so easy to will in our hearts things that don’t seem like a big deal at the time. But each vow is like the bar of a prison.

The strongest inner vows happen when we are young. Often before we even have language. We judge the world around us as safe or not safe. In childhood, we determine in our little hearts what is to be trusted in the world. We can also judge our parents from our own perspective.

Oftentimes, I may not even know there is an inner vow working in my life. But there is bad fruit manifesting in our relationships.

Yes! That’s why we need to be in relationship with others in the Body of Christ. In loving relationships, we can see where we are closing ourselves off from each other.

As we grow in love, we want to be in healthy relationships with healthy boundaries. Healthy means loving people and allowing people into our lives. The Lord has called us to love others and love Him. We are not meant to isolate ourselves from people like islands in the middle of the ocean. The Kingdom of God is about relationships.

That’s where my cage is a problem. While protecting myself from being hurt by others, I have also protected myself from good, healthy relationships. I’ve prevented myself from being able to love others or to receive healthy love from others.

So how do we break out of this mess? The place to start is to renounce and repent of those unhealthy inner vows and be free of those walls that keep us trapped. Then we are in a healthier place to love and be loved.

Here’s 4 steps for breaking the power of inner vows over my life:

  1. Repentance and confession for my responses that led me to make that vow.
  2. Forgiveness of those who’ve hurt me.
  3. Renounce the vow. Come out of agreement with the lie behind the vow.
  4. Replace the lie with God’s truth. Ask the Holy Spirit for the truth the lie was hiding from you.

Our agreement is everything. Inner vows are tied to a false identity. By renouncing inner vows and coming out of agreement with them, we’re taking back our ability to trust Jesus.

How about you? Do you hide behind a mask in your relationships? Or have you learned healthy boundaries? Or, like most of us, are you in the middle somewhere, learning to be vulnerable? Tell us in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.

How to End the Disconnect between Our Head Knowledge and Our Lives

/2 Comments/in , , , , /by

There’s a deception going around the Body of Christ that breaks my heart. We have seen so many lives ruined because people believe this lie. To some degree or another, this lie is at the start of every deceptive road a Christian goes down.

“I Know It’s Sin, But I’ll Be Ok”

Abortion-minded clients come into our local crisis pregnancy center and identify as Christians. Even after seeing an ultra-sound, sometimes they leave still determined to have an abortion, saying, “I know it’s a sin, but I’ll be ok.”

That breaks my heart. But I see it all over the place in the Body of Christ. It’s our favorite line to justify our sin, whether it’s abortion, pornography, or cheating on taxes.

Does any Christian man doing porn really not know it’s sin? I doubt it. Does any Christian couple living together, acting like they’re married without really being married, not know it’s sin? I doubt it.

So, why? There are many reasons, many ways to get caught in a web of deception. But they all have an element of, “I know it’s sin, but I’ll be ok.”

No, You Won’t Be Ok. You’ll Be Alive, But You Will Not Be Ok.

It’s like saying, “I can cut my arm off. Everybody’s doing it. Lefty is the new cool. I’ll be ok.”

No, you won’t be ok. You’ll survive, you’ll still be alive, but you’ll be far from ok. Just think about this absurd example of actually cutting your arm off. You’d never be able to tie your own shoes or cut your own meat.

“But all my shoes have Velcro and I’m going vegan.” You’re missing the point. You can try to mitigate the consequences however you want, but life will never be the same. Sin destroys. You will not be ok.

“No One Will Know:” An Example from a King Who Was Not Ok

Look at King David. His sin, “secret” adultery with Bathsheba, did not leave him ok. He probably thought, “Look at that hottie taking a bath. I’ll bring her over to the palace for a quickie. No one will know. Yeah, I know it’s sin, but I’ll be ok.”

Yes, he was forgiven. Psalm 51 is a beautiful picture of David’s repentance. And God was with him through all his subsequent troubles, including having his daughter raped, 4 sons die, including running for his life from his own son, whose death he had to pretend to celebrate. David was far from ok. (You can read the whole story in 2 Samuel 11 through 1 Kings 2.)

The Problem: A Disconnect between Our Head Knowledge and Our Lives

We show what we really believe by how we live. If we say we believe something, but don’t live it out, we don’t really believe it.

We go to church every Sunday. We read the Bible. We’ve accepted Jesus as our personal Savior. But when it comes to situations in our life, do we give ourselves a bye on what we know is right?

Do we risk following Jesus and doing it God’s way when it’s our own life? If not, we don’t really believe it.

Intellectual assent is not Christianity. The only person we’re fooling is ourselves.

The Solution: 3 Choices

There is a solution. It’s a series of 3 choices we, as the Body of Christ, need to make.

Choice #1: Repent of Our Idolatry

“I know it’s sin, but I’ll be ok.” That’s idolatry at the deepest level. It’s not ok, and you won’t be ok. Although God will be with you through the consequences, God’s grace is not a license to sin. The book of Romans was written to address this fallacy.

We cannot tolerate any secret sin within ourselves. We notice it, and we cry out to God in repentance until he removes it. We design our life to keep us away from that thing as much as possible.

You get the idea. Repentance isn’t just tears and confession, although confession is certainly part of it and tears often come. Until we make a practical life change, we haven’t really repented.

Choice #2: Speak & Teach the Hard Truths

I went to a church for many years where, in his sermon every Sunday, the pastor wove in something about sexual integrity, tithing, or TV. Even if it was just a sentence, it was there. Every. Single. Sunday.

As churches, we need to stop taking for granted that people know how to live righteously. Even people in the church, who have been Christians a long time, often don’t. And it’s our fault for assuming they do and not regularly teaching on it.

As Christians, we are God’s voice of love to the world. It’s not love to watch destructive life styles devastate people and not say anything. The world desperately needs us to speak the truth in love.

“Silence does not interpret itself.” – Father Frank Pavone, Priests for Life

When the church doesn’t regularly teach about practical righteousness, or when Christians don’t speak up about what we know is wrong, we’re leaving our friends and children to the influence of the world.

Choice #3: Trusting God: Prepare to Die

One of my favorite memes is from the movie The Princess Bride: “Hello. My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

If we’re really serious about being Christians, and not just playing church, we need to live this version: “Hello. My name is Jesus. You follow me. Prepare to die. To yourself.”

(NOTE: I’m not talking about suicide here or being martyred, or giving up on life. I’m talking about living the life God’s calling us to live, dying to our own selfish desires that don’t honor God.)

When disaster strikes, we need to be prepared to follow God’s ways no matter what. Because in the heat of the moment, the lie is, “If you do it God’s way, it’ll kill you.” And in the heat of the moment, we believe it. From where we stand, looking at this mountain in front of us, it looks true.

And maybe it really is. Ok then. Time to test our belief in the afterlife. Here we die.

The truth is, even if we actually die following God, that’s not really dying. You just passed the test and now are in glory. Small price to pay, looking back on it from the other side.

But the truth also is, the vast majority of the time, you won’t die. God will come through. And not trusting God, doing it our own way, actually brings the disaster we tried to avoid.

Your Turn

What are your thoughts? Tell us your story in the comments. Did this post strike a nerve? Or did it resonate? And please share if others need to read this post.

Why Jesus and You Can Walk Out of Your Tomb of Lies this Easter

/4 Comments/in , /by

This is Easter week, a.k.a. Resurrection Sunday. This is the single greatest, most significant event in human history. When Jesus rose from the dead, he shattered it all. One thing all the different human systems of morality, government, and ethics absolutely agree on is that once you die, you’re supposed to stay dead. Period. That’s the way it works.

Until now. Jesus shattered it all. And if death is no longer absolute, then everything else is up for grabs.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Do you know the old Hans Christian Anderson fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes? If not, here’s a fun link to the Danny Kaye version.

The gist of the story is these two crooked tailors pretend to bring the Emperor a new set of clothes. They pretend to hold them so the Emperor and his court can see how beautiful they are, but their hands are really empty. They tell the Emperor’s court these clothes are magical: only intelligent people who aren’t fools can see them. The Emperor, not wanting to appear foolish, pretends he can see them and goes on and on about how beautiful they are. All the courtiers, taking their cue from the Emperor and not wanting to appear foolish in front of their peers, also pretend to see them and to be impressed by their beauty.

The deception feeds on itself and the Emperor schedules a parade through the capital streets to show off his new magical and beautiful clothes. Word has spread so everyone knows what they’re supposed to see. Not wanting to be the only one in the kingdom to appear foolish, all the adults marvel at the beauty of the Emperor’s new clothes. But none of them could actually see them, because in reality they weren’t there.

Except for one little boy who didn’t get the memo and didn’t know what he was supposed to see. When the parade passed him, he cried out in shock and surprise, “The emperor’s in the all-together naked!” And he couldn’t help but start laughing hysterically.

Real laughter, especially when you’re trying to not laugh, is contagious. The people around the little boy suddenly realized the ridiculousness of it all and started laughing also. And the laughter spread until the whole crowd was laughing at the naked Emperor who suddenly realized what an idiot he was being, and how he’d been taken advantage of.

For their sakes, I hope the two crooked tailors had made the country’s border by then!

Jesus is like that. He laughs at the world’s systems and shatters all the lies that keep us bound. All the lies we grew up with, that we take for granted, fall at the foot of the cross. Jesus wants to bring them crashing down. Jesus disrupts the status quo.

“That’s Just the Way I Am”

What lie in your life is keeping you bound? Jesus wants to shatter it. The problem is that the nature of being deceived by a lie is that you don’t know you’re deceived. So how do you know what lie is keeping you bound?

We’ve found a good litmus test is, “that’s just the way I am.” If you think that about some area of your life, you’re probably believing a lie.

“I’ll always be overweight. I’m just big-boned.” Actually, your family lied to you. Unintentionally, but they did. There’s no such thing as “big-boned.” You can choose to lose weight. Jesus died to make it possible.

“I’ll never be smart enough to amount to anything.” Who rooted those lies deep in your heart? They aren’t true. I’m writing about in the plural here because there are multiple lies in there:

  • “I’ll never be smart.” That’s not true. You can choose to be as smart as you want to be. Jesus died to make it possible.
  • “You have to be smart to amount to anything.” Not! You already amount to something. He loves you the way you are. You don’t have to change to be loved. But when you realize how deeply you’re loved, you’ll want to change.

Look, you don’t need to be smarter, stronger, thinner, prettier, taller, shorter, holier or anything else for God to love you. Jesus already infinitely loves you.

There is no circumstance, addiction, or problem you have that does not have to bow its knee to King Jesus, if you command it to. Eventually. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. And you may not see fruit right away. That’s ok. Keep fighting.

People with deep wounds who have been abused by this world, perhaps sexually or by abortion, often suffer from depression and think “it’s always going to be this way.” It’s not. Either in this world or the next, God will make it right.

Some people get healed instantly, but for others it’s a longer road. If you’re on the long road, know that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not a “bad Christian.” It just means that God, in his mercy and great love for you, is healing you one season at a time. Bringing it all at once is sometimes more than we can handle.

The key question to ask is, “God, what are you doing in me this season?” Or, to put it another way, “Jesus, who do you want to be for me in this season?”

Although phrased differently, those two questions are really the same. Because every season of healing involves discovering God in a new way, experiencing a part of his character, his being, we haven’t experienced before.

God has a calling for you that you’re perfect for.

The enemy of our soul has used the pain in your life to set up structures of lies in your heart, to keep you from ever knowing who you really are. Jesus died to take that house of cards down. And powerful as those strongholds are, they are nothing but a house of cards before the blood of Jesus.

That’s what Easter, Resurrection Sunday, is all about. What lies are keeping you in a tomb? Jesus died to break them. Do you think you deserve to suffer because of what you’ve done in your past? That you don’t deserve better? Jesus died to erase your past.

You can come out of the tomb of your past, your bondage, all the lies holding you back, today with Jesus. Jesus wants to raise you to a new life and a new hope with him. It may not be a quick fix. It may be a long road. But it’s a road lined with hope.

Here’s a sample prayer to start on the first day of the rest of your exciting life. Use this as a guide and make it your own.

Jesus, who do you want to be for me today? Today I stop this habitual sin. Nail it to your cross. Give me your power to live without it. Show me the lies I believe, and the pain in my heart I was using my sin to medicate. I give you permission to replace my lies with your truth, all at once or one at a time, however you know is best for me. I trust you. Walk with me out of this tomb of lies into the exciting future and calling you have for me.

How about You?

What lies has Jesus set you free from? Are there some you’re still struggling with? Share your story in the comments. You’re not the only one. Your story will help others. And please share this post if it would bless others.

How to be a Coach Not a Rescuer, and How to Tell the Difference

/4 Comments/in , , , , , /by

As Christians, we all want to be helpful. We’ve experienced the blessing of sacrificing for another person. Unlike the world, most Christians I know really aren’t in it for themselves. We genuinely care about the communities we’re a part of, and we’re willing to sacrifice if it will contribute to the greater good.

We long to be like Jesus. That whole cross thing was pretty helpful, saving the world and all. It sure changed my life, as well as the entire trajectory of the world.

So while we all want to be helpful, it turns out there’s a good helpful and a bad helpful. It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes because often they look exactly the same, from the outside at least. But the inner motivation is different, and over time you can see the fruit on the outside also. 

The Bad Helpful — Rescuers

Rescuers have to be helpful. Of course being helpful is good in and of itself, but with rescuers there is something else going on. Rescuers get their value from helping. That’s why they have to. It’s really not about the person they’re helping at all. It’s all about the rescuer and how it makes them feel.

And actually, there’s even something deeper going on — the inner heart motivation. Rescuers are driven by fear. While looking great on the outside, they’re actually terrified of becoming a victim. “If I’m rescuing a victim, I must not be one, right?”

At first, the rescuer and the victim are thrilled to have found each other. The victim feels safe that someone is finally helping them. And we, as the rescuer, feel all good and warm and fuzzy inside; we feel valued. Nothing wrong with that, per se. But it goes off the rails as soon as the rescuer actually expects something of the victim.

The solution to every problem in life requires us, at some level, to tell ourselves “no.”

The victim is unwilling to tell themselves “no,” at least not the “no” that would lead out of the problem. They’re unwilling to give up the lifestyle or the addiction or whatever is causing the problem. They just want the pain to go away. 

So when we, as the rescuer, require something of them, they turn on us. “Hey, I thought you were supposed to be helping me!” We’ve suddenly become the new persecutor, and the poor victim searches for a new rescuer.

Meanwhile, we, playing the misunderstood rescuer, feel frustrated that all our good advice is going to waste. “I only wanted to help!” We feel devalued because we got emotionally attached to the solution. Since we’re getting our value from solving their problem, when our solution gets rejected, so do we.

Acting as rescuers, our worst comes out. We control and manipulate to force our advice and help into being accepted, because our value is on the line. 

This sounds strange, but when we pop into rescuer mode, we’re actually giving away our power over our own life. Because our value is now in the hands of someone else accepting or rejecting our advice. So when our advice is rejected, it’s off to find another victim to validate us by accepting our advice, letting us control their situation and solve their problem. 

The Good Helpful — Coaches

On the other hand, coaches are the good helpful. Unlike rescuers who have to be helpful, coaches are available to be helpful. 

While rescuers look at the landscape and seek poor victims who won’t make it without them, coaches don’t see victims at all. They see creators who have forgotten who they are. 

In the midst of the storm, people can feel pretty powerless, at the mercy of forces they can’t control. And while this world is full of forces one can’t control, in every situation one can still do something. Coaches restore people’s power with one, simple, empowering question: “What are you going to do?”

As a good coach, if the other person is open to it, we can still offer advice. But we always ask first. There’s no point trying to solve a problem the other person says they don’t have. 

But even when offering advice, coaches are not emotionally attached to the solution. When we’re in coach mode, we may feel disappointed our advice or help was rejected, but it doesn’t wreck us. We give the other person the freedom to reject our advice. 

After giving our best advice, we simply ask them again, “What are you going to do?” As a powerful person, it’s their choice. By giving them the freedom to choose without manipulation, we’re pulling them out of victimhood by restoring their power.

As coaches, our value is in who we are before Jesus, not whether our godly wisdom is accepted or not. Since our value isn’t on the line, we give the other person the freedom to reject our advice if they choose. We honor their choice, even if we know it’ll be bad for them in the long run. We accept that the Lord will walk them through learning that themselves, if they’re determined to go down that road.

Everyone has to live their own adventure.

It can really hurt to watch a loved one go down a dark path. But trying to rescue them won’t work, in the long term at least. You can’t force it. They have to live their own adventure. You can coach them, to the degree they choose to accept it. But working harder on their problem than they do is the definition of codependence, and it never ends well.

How to Tell if We Are Rescuing or Coaching 

Like most things in life, the difference between rescuers and coaches isn’t always black ‘n’ white. Often, we both play both roles at different times with different people. So how can we tell when we’re slipping into rescuer mode vs being a healthy coach? Here are 3 simple clues:

1) You’re owning the problem.

When you’re working harder on the other person’s problem than they are, you’re slipping into rescuer mode. It’s their problem, let them own it. That includes allowing them to deny the problem exists and live with the consequences, if they so choose.

This can be harder than it looks. When they’re in pain, people often don’t want to own their problem. They’d much rather give it to you. Then you’re responsible for the negative consequences of their choices. And they get the added entertainment bonus of watching you try to make them follow your advice. Good luck with that.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7)

When we take ownership of their problem and rescue people from the logical consequences of their choices, we’re actually interfering with God’s process of sowing of reaping. Don’t do that. 

Yes, we can help. I’m not saying we don’t have compassion and just let people drown in their messes. But we need to stay in a posture of helping them solve their problem, not solving it for them.

2) Where’s your value coming from?

Can you still feel good about yourself if the person doesn’t solve the problem? If you’re emotionally attached to the solution, you’re slipping into rescuer mode. 

I know this can be really hard when a loved one is screwing up their life. But we have to let them live their own adventure. When our value becomes dependent on the success or health of their life, we’ve become a rescuer.

3) Do the potential consequences of this problem scare you?

If the person doesn’t solve the problem, have you failed? If your success as a parent (or spouse or mentor or friend or whatever) hangs in the balance, then you’re in rescuer mode. This is a sign you’re being driven by fear.

Let you be you and them be them. You can still be you and move forward even if they fail at being them. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, especially if they’re a loved one. There’s plenty of pain and loss to go around. But you’re not going to fix anything in the long run by being their rescuer, by being their savior. They already have one, and they need to deal with him.

Does this resonate?

Have you made the transition from rescuer to coach? Is God bringing up relationships where you’re more rescuing than coaching? Tell us your story and your thoughts in the comments. And please share this on social media if it would bless someone else.

2 Steps out of Self-Condemnation and into Believing in Yourself like God Does

/6 Comments/in , , /by

Too often we listen to self-condemning lies because we don’t understand how God sees us. We put ourselves under pressure to be perfect. But God never designed us to bear such pressure.

We can understand how God really sees us by looking at how we, as good parents, interact with our children. Let’s look at a couple examples:

First Steps

It’s that magical time. Your baby is about to take his first steps. He can stand and balance (mostly). You can tell he wants to walk, but he’s not sure about this balance-while-moving thing. It’s a lot to balance just standing still!

But you don’t want to miss those precious first steps. So you plop Mr. Wobbly down a few feet away and hold out your arms. “C’mon! Come to mommy!”

He smiles, wanting to come to you. He wobbles a bit, trying to figure out how to lift a foot and still balance. Then he drops to his knees and crawls to you.

“What’s the matter with you? How could you make such a mistake! You never do anything right!” Said no mom ever.

No. What do you do? You laugh, pick him up, give him a big smoochie kiss, and plop him right back down in the same spot again. “C’mon! Come to mommy!”

Do you care how often he drops to his knees and crawls to you? No, not at all, you’re not even counting! You’re just loving the process of watching him learn to walk, doing something he’s never done before. You love participating in it with him.

First Hit

How about this. Your toddler’s ready to start hitting a whiffle ball. You’ve watched baseball games with him and tossed a ball back ‘n’ forth. Now you got him a plastic bat and you’re pitching to him. You toss him his first pitch in the living room, much to your wife’s chagrin. It’s only a plastic ball. What could happen?

It’s the first pitch he’s ever been thrown, and he misses it.

“What’s the matter with you? How could you make such a mistake! You never do anything right!” Said no dad ever.

No. What do you do? You toss him another one. You don’t even have to retrieve the first ball because you bought a bucket of them. You knew he’d miss most of them. “Great cut! Keep swinging like that and you’ll be in the Majors! Keep your eye on the ball; here’s another one!”

Eventually he hits one. It tinks on the carpet a foot in front of him. “Run! Run!” you shout as you make a big show of diving for the ball. He runs around the living room and, as you barely “miss” tagging him, he scores his first home run! You swing him around the room to celebrate singing “Take Me out to the Ballgame”. Then you get ready to pitch some more.

Eventually he connects and smacks a line drive that breaks the lamp. Who would have seen that coming? But you realize your wife was right and take Slugger outside so he can really hit.

God Celebrates Our Learning

We celebrate our children’s learning. We understand their mistakes and failures are part of the learning process. And we celebrate those mistakes and failures along with their successes. We get that their mistakes, even their failures, are not sin. They didn’t do anything wrong. They’re just learning. It’s all part of the precious process of helping our children learn. We get that and we love to be in the process with them.

So why, we when we make an honest mistake, do we tell ourselves, “What’s the matter with you? How could you make such a mistake! You never do anything right!” God, our good parent, doesn’t say that! He just wants to hug us and love us and plop us right back down to try it again.

We put pressure on ourselves that God never does, that no good parent would. He just wants to toss us another ball. He’s not counting how many we miss; he’s actually expecting us to miss a bunch while we’re learning. If we bomb a situation, don’t worry, he’s got plenty more lined up.

It takes a lot of practice to learn to walk—to balance with one foot in the air while moving forward. To hit a thrown ball with a stick. To live a healthy, godly life in an unhealthy dangerous world. You know your child needs practice. God knows we need practice.

You’re not Failing, You’re Practicing.

Honest mistakes, even honest flat-out failures, are not sin. There’s nothing wrong with making an honest mistake. We’re just learning. Why can’t we give ourselves the same grace that God does? The same grace that we give our children?

Rebellion

Yes, there are mistakes and failures that are sin. If your toddler throws the bat at you or whacks the coffee table with it (after having been told not to), that’s different. That’s rebellion. That’s sin. You wouldn’t handle that by tossing him another pitch. You’ve got to re-orient him to the pillow you’re using as a make-shift home plate, and get him, as a hitter, back in right stance, in the right orientation, or relationship, to you as the pitcher, waiting to hit your pitch and not trying to hit anything else.

And yes, as humans we’ve perfected rebellion to an art form. Our society has normalized rebellion, and even celebrates certain forms of it, transgender being the hot one right now. If I decide I’m going to be someone other than who God’s made me to be, that’s spiritual rebellion. The truth is there is tremendous wounding in that person that God wants to heal, but that’s a subject for another post.

Sometimes we try to pitch so God can hit, and we’re shocked when he doesn’t swing. God deals with rebellion by bringing circumstances into our life to remind us who’s pitching and who’s hitting here. He invites us to get reoriented, back into right relationship, with him as the pitcher, and us as the batter, waiting to hit his next pitch.

2 Ways out of Self-Condemnation

If you’re truly chasing, longing, after what God has for you, if you’re partnering with him for your life, honest mistakes are just learning. Be gentle with yourself.

The truth is, all that negative self-talk, all that condemnation, is really from the enemy. We often don’t recognize it as such though, because the sneaky bugger talks to us in our own voice. He disguises his hellish lies as our own thoughts.

But if we’re alert to it, we can recognize that condemnation for the lie it is. Often, that’s enough. But sometimes, even when our head knows it’s hogwash, it’s lodged in our heart somewhere. And when we believe it, it has power over us. Here are 2 ways out of self-condemnation:

1) Ask Somebody to Pray with You. Please talk to someone. That’s what God put them in your life for, so they can help you in these times, and likewise. Don’t suffer alone. Tell someone how you’re feeling, if you just can’t shake it, and ask them to pray with you. Not for you. With you. Right then and there.

There is no shame in counseling. Counselors teach you the life-tools your parents should’ve, but (out of their wounding) didn’t.

There are a lot of options here. A phone call with a friend. Counseling. A talk with your pastor. Regular coffee with a mentor. Inner healing. Deliverance. (Inner healing and deliverance need to be from trained individuals who know what they’re doing.) Give yourself all the tools in the toolbox you need; everyone needs a different mix of these. Here are some resources. If they are not in your geographical area, call them anyway and ask if they can recommend resources that are. (None of these are affiliate links.)

Counseling:

Spotswood Biblical Counseling Center (Fredericksburg, VA)

Dominion Counseling and Training Center (Richmond, VA)

Inner Healing:

Elijah House Ministries (HQ in Coeur d’Alene, ID, with trained resources across the US and around the world)

Restoring the Foundations (HQ in Mount Juliet, TN, with trained resources across the US and around the world)

Deliverance:

The Church Unchained (Stafford, VA)

Christian Healing Ministries (Francis & Judith MacNutt, Jacksonville, FL)

2) Replace the Lie with the Truth. Ask the Holy Spirit for the opposite of the lie. Speak God’s promise over yourself out loud.

My lie was, “I don’t deserve better.” For me, the opposite is Psalm 139. On bad days I read it out loud. There is power in the words you say. They define the atmosphere around your life. And while you’re at it, tell that lying spirit of self-condemnation to go soak its head in a bucket of ice water. You’re not listening to it anymore.

So How about It?

Are you ready to step out of self-condemnation and into the adventure God has for you? Tell us about it in the comments or shoot us an email. We’d love to hear from you. And please share if this post would bless someone else.

How to Make Real and Lasting Change

/2 Comments/in , /by

It’s Not “Just the Way You Are”

Do you have a behavior you just can’t stop? Maybe an addiction? Maybe just a bad habit that you keep finding yourself doing? Maybe you’ve given up and told yourself, “That’s just the way I am.”

Hogwash. It doesn’t have to be the way we are. That’s a choice we make. We can make another choice. But just trying harder is not going to work. We actually have to do something different.

As long we’re still breathing, God’s not done with us. Sanctification is a lifelong process. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is nonsense. That’s a choice the dog makes. Personally, this puppy wants to keep learning until the day I die.

“The Room Was Unlocked Again!”

Years ago I worked for a certain engineering company with government contracts. We had several “cleared” program rooms; they were special rooms with added security for processing classified information. We had different rooms for different programs, which could all be locked and alarmed independently.

We also had a serious problem. Every other month or so, one of the rooms wouldn’t get locked at night.

They were always innocent mistakes. Maybe the guy who unlocked the room in the morning didn’t know the guy who usually locked it at night left early that day. Or the person who meant to lock it up got busy with some other important project and just forgot, an honest mistake. Or some such thing.

But we had to figure this out. Leaving a special room unlocked is a security violation we had to report to the Customer. Too many of those and they cancel your program. This was a really big, serious deal.

After every violation, our boss would email everybody about the importance of making sure the special rooms were locked each night, reminding everyone to be vigilant and try harder.

After several episodes, I had a talk with our boss and our security officer. “Trying harder is not going to work,” I said. “We are all conscientious, responsible people. We can’t try harder; we’re already trying as hard as we can, and this keeps happening. We have to do something different.”

I had an idea from what I’d seen work at other facilities. We needed a physical token. Room tags. We laminated 4” x 6” colored cards: red, blue, orange, and green. Each program had its own color. We put each one on a lanyard so you could put it around your neck. When the room was locked, its tag hung on a hook outside the door.

When you unlocked a room in the morning, you put the room tag around your neck. It was big and clunky enough so you couldn’t go home and forget you had it. Before you left, you had to give it to someone else. If they accepted it, they were now responsible for locking the room that night. If you couldn’t get anyone to accept the tag, you had to go lock up the room before leaving.

It worked! Once we started doing this, our security violations completely stopped. We did something different.

So What Can You Do Differently?

Here are some ideas to get you started thinking about what you personally, in your situation, might do differently.

If it’s a social thing, like drugs or alcohol, you need to change friends. Ouch! That’s hard, I know. But if the thing you want to change is something you do when you hang around certain people, you need to stop hanging around those certain people.

If it’s a private thing, like porn, you need accountability. Throw away your laptop and disable the data on your phone. Buy a desktop computer and put it in a very public/open area of your house. Everybody can see what you’re doing on the computer. Alternatively, ask a spouse or friend to regularly review your browser cache to see want you’ve been doing. You can also buy software that blocks those sites.

If you’re trying to go to the gym every morning, set out your gym clothes the night before, next to a glass of water. When you get up, first thing, drink that glass of water. It hydrates your brain and helps you think clearly. Your gym clothes are there staring at you. It’s easy to put them on and go. This has worked wonders for me.

It’s a Kingdom of God principle that we attract to ourselves what we think about, what we dwell on. Write down your goals every morning and pray over them. It’ll focus your mind on your goals instead of your problems.

These are just some ideas. What ideas can you come up with for your situation?

Let’s Be Honest

Listen, if you don’t want to change, then don’t change. But be honest with yourself, and everyone else, about it.

If you don’t do something differently, if you don’t change your behavior, you need to face the truth that you actually want the addiction, bad habit, or whatever it is. You’re getting something out of it. It’s probably medicating pain on some level. Knock yourself out, you’re free to choose.

And honestly, if you’re medicating pain, just stopping the addiction won’t work anyway. You’ll just trade it for something else. You need to deal with the root cause of the pain. We write a lot on this blog about doing that.

But if you do want to change, what’s the first step? What can you do differently? Tell us in the comments, and please share if this post would bless someone else.