3 Steps from Familiar Sick Bondage into Unknown Healthy Freedom

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Often we choose bondage over freedom. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Who would do that? We don’t do it intentionally. We don’t even realize we’re doing it. But we do. We do it when we choose the sick familiar over the healthy unknown.

The dysfunction we grew up with is familiar. We think it’s normal, even if we hate it, because it’s all we’ve known. It’s not normal; it’s sick and dysfunctional. But it’s normal for us. It’s familiar.

Moving into healthy freedom can be scary. It’s uncharted and unknown territory. It doesn’t have the comfort of something familiar. It requires us to face the fear our familiar sickness was protecting us from.

Freedom comes at a price. We certainly get that at a national level. But it’s true even at the personal, emotional, and spiritual levels. God’s unique calling on the life of every individual, that adventure he created you to live, is totally free but it costs you everything. Dude, make sense!

Jesus died to make a way. His blood paid the price to make that way freely available. In that sense, intimacy with God through the person of Jesus, pursuing the calling on your life, is totally free. Freely available.

But it costs you everything. Everything familiar. Everything you value above Jesus. Every idol in your life. Every behavior you use to protect your own heart instead of trusting God with it. It requires (eventually) facing every fear.

So it’s understandable why often we choose our familiar, comforting, sick over the unknown, uncomfortable, healthy. It comes down to fear, and who we’re going to trust.

So how do we break out of the sick familiar into the healthy unknown? Here are 3 steps.

1) Recognize where You Are

We have to honestly recognize our behavior is sick, and it’s not ok. Otherwise there’s no reason to change.

For example, maybe our family of origin shouted at each other when they were angry. Maybe bullying the other person into submission is the only communication style we’ve been taught. It’s all we’ve ever seen modeled.

How do we know when we’re stuck living in the sick familiar? Here’s 3 indicators:

  • It’s something we grew up with.
  • We hate it when our family members (or others) do it to us.
  • We do it to others.

If you respond to others with a behavior that you grew up hating, you’re living in the sick familiar. Stop taking it for granted. You’re hurting the ones you love the same way you’ve been hurt. It’s not ok.

John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard, told a story about talking to God one day during his devotion time. He said, “I think I’m doing alright. I’ve got some hang-ups, but I’m doing ok.”

Immediately the Holy Spirit spoke to his spirit, “I don’t deal in hang-ups, John. I deal in sin. If you have sin in your life, confess it, and let’s deal with it. But don’t mask it by calling it a hang-up.”

We have to realize our sick, familiar behavior is actually sin. It’s hurting the people around us, and it’s hurting us.

2) Admit the Benefit

We act this way because we get something out of it. Sandra Sellmer Kersten (Elijah House Australia) tells a story of a man who came for prayer ministry to deal with his temper, his horrible rages. The prayer minister asked him what he got out of it, what benefit this behavior gave him.

“There’s no benefit,” he answered. “I’m destroying my family and hurting everyone I love!”

She replied, “There has to be a benefit, or you wouldn’t act this way. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the benefit.”

After several moments of prayer and waiting on the Holy Spirit, he looked up and said, “You know, there is a benefit. When I’m angry, I don’t feel the pain.” Bingo.

3) Face the Fear of Being Free by Running into the Pain

This is counter-intuitive. Our natural reaction is to avoid pain, not run through it. Here’s a post that describes this concept more fully, but the upshot is this. Unlike cattle who run away from a thunderstorm, buffalo run right into it. Since they’re running the opposite way the storm is moving, they minimize their time in the storm. By contrast, cattle, by running away from the storm and trying to avoid the pain, actually prolong their time in the storm. Let’s put some skin on what “running into the pain” means.

If we want to be healthy, we have to release the benefit of being sick, facing the fear of not having that benefit.

Let’s make up an example. Suppose you’re a shouter. Maybe that’s how your parents taught you to communicate by their example. All negative behavior is driven by fear. If you don’t already know, ask the Holy Spirit what you’re afraid of.

Suppose it’s vulnerability. The anger, the rages, the shouting — it all keeps people at a safe distance. It keeps you safe from the vulnerability you fear. If you want to move out of the sick temper tantrums and rages into healthy, satisfying relationships, then you’re going to have to embrace being vulnerable. Yikes!

Will you trust God to protect your heart in the place of vulnerability? Or will you continue to protect your heart yourself, by raging and shouting and keeping people away? The choice is yours.

God loves you enough to trust you with that choice. He’s not going to impose the right answer on you. God’s not into control.

So how about you? What behavior were you terrified to let go of and trust God instead? How’d that work out? What behavior are you currently struggling with? How are you guarding your heart? Tell us your story in the comments. Your story and your struggle is powerful and will help someone else get free. And please share this post on social media if it would bless someone else.

Why Life is Sacred and What that Even Means

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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 else.

How to Succeed by Deciding to Fail

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At a recent writer’s conference (Jeff Goins’ Tribe conference), I heard a speaker, Joseph Michael, author of the online course Learn Scrivener Fast, say he was thankful for his failures. I’d always known intellectually that failures are good for you. As long as you learn something, failures are learning experiences. They’re a necessary part of moving forward in life.

I’m not talking about moral failures here. We call those sin, and that’s never good for you, although our gracious Father in Heaven often works good out of them when we repent. But that’s a whole other topic. I’m talking here about mistakes. Or maybe it wasn’t even a mistake—stuff we tried that just didn’t work, for whatever reason. The house plant died. The stock price didn’t rise; it fell. The book didn’t sell.

It wasn’t even Joseph Michael’s main point. He just said it in passing. But when he said he was thankful for his failures, in that moment something leaped the long twelve inches from my head to my heart. I felt the Holy Spirit’s conviction that I need to fail more. I set a goal to fail at 4 major things in 2019.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not setting out to fail. I’m going to try my best. But if my goal is to succeed, I won’t even try unless success is assured from the outset. “Well, c’mon,” my brain says, “with anything important or worthwhile, success is never guaranteed.” But my heart’s not going near that risky goal. The cost of personal failure is too great; it hurts too much. So I sabotage myself and never lean into my calling. Can you relate?

Some people could phrase this goal as trying 4 new/risky things in 2019. Probably most people don’t have to use the f-word, FAIL, in their goal. But I do. God is healing me from severe Performance Orientation, where I get my sense of value from what I do. If I internally said try in my goal, and it didn’t succeed, I’d tell myself the story that I didn’t try hard enough, and the heart-crushing failure would set in.

Avoiding failure avoids risk, which avoids success. My avoidance of failure keeps me safe from risk, but also from the wild success that is only possible through trying risky things.

But if internally my goal is to fail, then my heart feels free to take that risk, because I know I can meet that goal. Just the way my brain, or maybe my heart, is wired. Anybody else, or is it just me?

For some people, setting a goal to fail would mean they’d not do the work, or do it substandard, setting themselves up for failure. Those people are wired differently from me and that’s fine. For me though, I don’t have that problem. If I try something, I’ll do everything I can, the best I can, to achieve success. That’s just who I am.

For me, setting the goal of failing is the permission my heart needs to try something risky. Then if it fails and the self-condemnation loop starts, I can say “hey, I met my goal” and stop it. And if the thing actually succeeds, then, wow, Bonus! I exceeded my goal.

So get ready, 2019, it’s going to be a fun year. I’m going to actually try things I wouldn’t previously even vocalize. How about you? Are you up an adventure? Do you dare give substance to that dream in your heart? What’s the first baby step? Take it.

And who knows? Maybe failing at 4 things in 2019 will be a really hard goal to meet because everything actually works! Wouldn’t that be a great problem to have? Please share this post if you think it would inspire someone else.

How to Tell the Difference between 3 Types of Emotional Pain We Feel

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Pain is something we don’t understand very well, especially here in the West. We avoid it, medicate, and ignore it, none of which actually fixes it. But pain is important. It’s telling us something’s wrong that we need to address.

Pain is like the idiot light on your dashboard. What if the oil light comes on in my car, and I say, “I can fix that. I’ll just cover it with a piece of electrical tape. Problem solved!” And I can pat myself on the back for my cleverness. A one penny piece of electrical tape is way cheaper than a $30 oil change (or $100 if you’re using synthetic oil!) Aren’t I clever? For a moment.

This is so ridiculous you’re probably laughing, “Until the engine blows up, dude! Then it’s not so clever anymore. That $30-$100 oil change is way cheaper than the $2500 (at least!) engine repairs you’re in for.” And you’re right. But we do this all the time with our pain.

Our problem is we treat pain like the problem. Just like the oil light on my dashboard isn’t the problem, our pain is not the problem. The pain is trying to tell us something. The thing causing the pain is the problem. And that’s what we need to deal with. The pain is just the fruit. We need to deal with the root cause.

Here’s an everyday example we’re all familiar with of dealing with the bad fruit and not the root causes. My parent’s generation took all sorts of medicine as they got older. People still do today. Blood pressure medicine, cholesterol medicine, heart medicine, arthritis medicine, etc, are all very common. Some people had/have so many medicines they can’t remember them all. They have a pill box with a compartment for each day of the week. Have you seen those? The pharmacist just fills them up with what they’re supposed to take that day.

But we’re learning now that many of these issues can often be corrected through changes in diet. Yes, medicines still have their place, but people going gluten-free, dairy-free, GMO-free, etc., are experiencing a lot less need for all these medicines. They are dealing with the root issue, and the fruit (their health) is taking care of itself.

Ready to learn how to do this with the pain in our lives? Let’s explore three types of emotional pain, and how to go to the root of each.

1) Pain from Wounding

In a certain season of my life, I was feeling a lot of emotional pain that I just couldn’t shake. I cried out to the Holy Spirit, “Why am I hurting so badly? What’s wrong with me!”

He answered quickly, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re wounded.” Being wounded from someone else’s actions really hurts. Their sin against us is not our fault. It’s not fair, but we often get to experience the repercussions and the pain of other people’s actions. There’s no such thing as a victimless crime. There’s no such thing as private sin that doesn’t hurt others.

While the sin against us isn’t our fault or our responsibility, our sinful response to it is. So often we respond by making false judgments about the world, others, ourselves, and God. These are bitter root expectations. Our agreement with them gives them power over our lives and they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

  • “People will always reject me.”
  • “God doesn’t love me.”
  • “No one’s going to protect me.”

Then we make inner vows to protect our heart, instead of crying out to God for his healing.

  • “I’ll reject them before they reject me.”
  • “I’ll always be good so people love me.”
  • “I’ll take care of myself.”

We get healing from wounds from others with three steps:

  1. Repenting of our judgments and inner vows.
  2. Replacing them with God’s truth.
  3. Grieving the loss.

We’ve got lots of posts on inner vows. (Just type “inner vows” into the site’s search field up above.) So I want to talk here a little bit about grieving the loss.

The original wound was a loss in our lives that we need to grieve. Maybe a loss of innocence. Maybe a loss of trust. Maybe those who should’ve protected us didn’t. Maybe it was a brutal welcome into a cruel world, designed to short-circuit our true identity God created us to walk in.

There are five phases of grief:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

They can go in any order, and they can repeat. But we need to work through these. Find a trusted friend, pastor, counselor, mentor, parent, spouse—someone you trust—and start grieving what you’ve lost. Be honest about it. Start by naming the loss—articulate it. Then start working through the five phases.

2) Pain from Our Own Stuff

It could be sin, or it could just be a mistake. Mistakes aren’t sin. If I clumsily fall down the stairs, that’s just a mistake and it’s not a sin. But I’ll still have pain from it, at least some bruises, if not a broken bone of two.

We don’t need the world’s help to hurt ourselves. We’re perfectly capable of doing it on our own, thank you very much. Living a sinful lifestyle is a great example. Janet and I see this all the time in the crisis pregnancy center where we volunteer. People want relief from the pain in their lives, but they want to continue the behavior that’s causing the pain. It just doesn’t work that way.

If you want relief from your headache, stop banging your head on the brick wall. Trying to find a better helmet so you can keep head-banging won’t help. You need to stop the behavior that’s causing the pain. “Don’t judge me!” Translation: “I know you’re right, but I don’t want to hear it.” Hey, I’m just saying.

Similarly, if we want to eliminate the bad fruit in our lives, we have to eliminate the root that’s causing it. Often that root is our own sin.

Here are some lifestyles that will cause you tremendous pain in your life, whether you believe it or not:

  • Sleeping with someone you’re not married to
  • Addictions (drugs, alcohol, pain killers, etc)
  • Workaholism
  • Raging at God and his people
  • Narcissism
  • Trying to earn love through performance

Healing comes when we admit our sin is actually sin and repent of it. Repenting doesn’t mean feeling sorry for it, or sorry for getting caught. It means “to turn around.” It’s like we’re walking East, we do a U-turn, and now we’re walking west. We stop doing that thing.

We were designed to be in community. If this is you, find someone you trust, and get help breaking out of this self-destructive cycle. Usually people can’t do it alone. There’s nothing wrong with you.

3) Hurting for Others

You can be hurting for others without being wounded by them. I’m talking here about a godly sorrow, a pain we feel on behalf of someone else. Maybe they’re causing havoc in their own lives with self-destructive behavior they don’t want to give up. Maybe they’re suffering from wounding caused by others against them. Maybe both. Maybe one is the root of the other.

Although it hurts, this is a good kind of pain. We are feeling a tiny sliver of God’s heart for them. This is a powerful place to be. This is the time to pray.

Often, when we feel anger, sadness, or other strong emotion at a person or a situation, it’s God calling us to pray for that person or situation. And I mean really pray. Like, for an hour or more. I’m not talking about a half-hearted, half-thinking, “Lord, bless Sally Smotch,” four words and then we go about our business. I’m talking about serious pressing in with intercession. Intercession enters into the Holy of Holies on behalf of someone else, crying God’s heart back to him.

It’s not about performance. It’s not about manipulating God into begrudgingly doing something. “Ok, I prayed for an hour. God owes me now.” No. But there’s something about sacrificial prayer, sacrificing our time, some other activity we’d otherwise be doing, for the sake of someone else that moves the heart of God.

And seeing your prayers answered in the person’s life makes it all worth it. It’s amazing. As intercessors, we live from testimony to testimony.

How about you?

Hurting from wounding, from the logical consequences of our own sin, and hurting for others are three different things. Which have you experienced? Have you transitioned through these 3 types of pain? Where are you in the process? Have you benefited from an intercessor praying for you? How have you seen your prayers for others answered?

How to Tell when It’s a Season to Heal

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Do you ever get confused by the weather? Do you ever think the weather itself is confused? I’m looking out the window watching the rain fall on a completely sunny day! Yes, it’s dumping rain at the same time the sun is shining. Does it do that where you live? It does it here in Virginia. All. The. Time.

It’s like God spun the weather spinner, and it stopped on the line between “Sunshine” and “Dumping Rain.” The angels are like, “Liner! Bummer, Lord. Shall we spin it again?” And the Lord goes, “No, it’s fine. Sunny and rainy, I’m God, I can do that. Watch this.” And bam, I need my sunglasses while turning on my wipers. Crazy!

The changing of seasons in our lives can be like that. Sudden and startling. Contradictory things start happening. Old, secure comfortable ways get uncomfortable. The grace for certain activities is just gone. What used to work no longer works. Ever experience this?

Often God does this on purpose when he brings us into a season of healing. In inner-healing lingo, it’s called “overloading our structures.”

Here’s what happens. We get wounded, which is not our fault; it’s someone else’s sin against us. But we respond sinfully with a false judgement, a foundational lie, about the world, about God, about ourselves, or about how we can expect to be treated.

  • “I’m bad. I’m dirty.”
  • “I’m not lovable.”
  • “Men will always abuse me.”
  • “You can’t trust women.”
  • “God isn’t there for me. He doesn’t care.”
  • “People will always reject me.”
  • “Emotions are bad. Emotions can kill you.”

Based on that judgement, we make sinful inner vows to protect our own heart, instead of trusting God.

  • “I’ll never have emotions.”
  • “I’ll take care of myself.”
  • “I’ll never trust anyone.”
  • “I’ll never be vulnerable.”
  • “I’ll always be the good person so people will love me.”
  • “I’ll always stay in control. Then I’ll be safe.”

Then the enemy says, “Look what they’ve decreed over their own life. I can help them with that.” This is why some people seem to have an invisible bulls-eye on them; for example, abusive partners are just drawn to them. They keep making the same relationship mistakes over and over again.

So events happen in our lives to reinforce that foundational lie, we double-down on our inner vows, and around the track we go again. This builds up a whole spiritual defensive structure around us, effectively defending us from God’s love and his destiny for our lives.

But you might ask, “I don’t want to be out of control. Being in control sounds like a good thing. How does being in control block God’s destiny for my life?” Believe me, if you’re living out God’s destiny for your life, it’s not something you could have planned for yourself. It’s an adventure. You are definitely not in control.

As CS Lewis said in The Magician’s Nephew, “O sons of Adam, how well you defend yourselves from everything that would do you good.”

The good news is, God won’t tolerate it forever. He loves us too much. He often allows it for a season, perhaps as a defense mechanism so a child can survive trauma. But when he knows it’s time for us to receive healing, God brings us into a new season. He knows when we’re ready, even if we don’t even realize there’s a wound at all.

The problem is, the sick way is all we know and we think it’s normal. And it is normal for us. It’s how we’ve lived. It’s how we were raised. It is all we know. But while it may be common, it’s not healthy, and it’s certainly not the Kingdom freedom he has for us.

So God starts overloading our structures. He brings situations, events, and people into our lives where the old coping mechanisms don’t work anymore. How we coped was how we hid the wound, often even from ourselves. But he wants to heal the wound, so he has to expose it, so our coping mechanisms stop working.

When the way you’ve coped in the past no longer works, God is bringing you into a season of healing. He wants to heal that root wound that’s been festering all these years. Rejoice and cooperate with the process. You’re about to experience more freedom than you’ve ever known.

Seasonal transitions can be rough. They drive my sinuses crazy. The weather patterns seem to be at war with themselves. And you never know what to wear. I end up changing clothes twice a day. But God’s healing is worth it.

How about you? Are you going through a transition? Find a trusted friend and share with them what you’re going through. Or your pastor or small group leader. Or email us, although it’s better if you can share with someone spiritually mature in your life. Maybe they can help you identify some inner vows God wants to heal. Often others can see what God’s doing in our lives better than we can, since they’re not so close to it. Tell us your story in the comments. And please share if this post would bless someone else.

How to Get Unstuck in 3 Questions and 2 Steps

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Judith MacNutt, wife of Francis MacNutt, tells a great story about a circus elephant she saw back-stage. The massive animal stayed in its circle, held by a chain around its foot staked at the center of the circle. The huge creature easily could have ripped that chain right out of the ground and taken off. But it didn’t. It obeyed the chain’s restriction on its mobility.

Fascinated, Judith MacNutt asked the handler how they trained such a massive animal to obey such a relatively small chain. “We first put the chain on when the animal’s small,” explained the handler, “The baby elephant learns it can’t pull the chain out of the ground. Then as it grows, it remembers that lesson and never challenges what it ‘knows’ to be true. So it’s not the chain that keeps an adult elephant bound, it’s the memory of the chain.”

Wow. How many of us are still bound by the memory of chains of trauma from childhood that we could easily break now as adults?

Trauma teaches us the world’s not safe. True lesson. The world’s not safe. What was done to us was absolutely wrong, sinful, and unjust. It was not fair, and it was not our fault. The problem is what we do with that lesson.

Often, rather than trusting God to protect us in an unsafe world, we vow to protect ourselves:

  • “I will never be angry like my dad.”
  • “I will not have emotions. Emotions hurt people.”
  • “I will not make a mistake. Mistakes can kill you.”
  • “I will never let anyone close enough to hurt me again.”
  • “I will take care of myself. No one else will.”
  • “I will be the good boy/girl so people love me.”

While the initial trauma is neither our sin nor our fault, our sinful response is our responsibility. We often vow to protect ourselves. Instead of trusting God, we become our own god. Our ability to control the situation (and the people) to protect ourselves becomes our very own personal idol.

The problem is, we make these inner vows based on their deceptive marketing. They don’t deliver. Either they don’t work at all, or they work in reverse, or they have an extremely high hidden cost the commercial didn’t tell us about. When they work at all, the cure is worse than the disease.

When They Don’t Work

If we vow to not have emotions, that won’t work. God made us with emotions, and we can’t undo what God has made no matter how hard we try. What happens instead is we don’t show emotions. But they’re there. Under the surface, simmering, like ripe magma getting ready for a volcanic eruption. There’s no such thing as an unexpressed emotion. It may come out 20 years later, and it may come out sideways, but it’s coming out.

“Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45) Not the overflow of our understanding. Not the overflow of our good intentions. The overflow of our heart—all those things we needed to express but never did. Like a volcano, the longer the pressure builds up, the bigger the eruption.

When They Work in Reverse

When we judge our parents or others in our lives, “I’ll never be like them,” we set ourselves up to be exactly like them. God promises us, “You who judge do exactly the same things.” (Romans 2:1) How often have we heard our parents’ exact same words coming out of our own mouth? The judgements we make set us up to do exactly the same things, cause the same hurt, and repeat the cycle all over again.

When They Have a High Hidden Cost

Sometimes inner vows actually do work as intended, but they have a high hidden cost we didn’t intend to sign up for. Often we make inner vows as children, a self-defense against the trauma, so we can survive. We don’t know they’re even there because they go back further than our memory. They can be hard to articulate when we made them in our heart before we had words.

For example, look at an inner vow to “never be vulnerable and let anyone close enough to hurt me.” Maybe a child made this vow at 2 years old while being molested. Even if the memory is completely suppressed, the vow is still in play, “protecting” our heart, like we told it to, like we decreed.

Decades later, we get married to a wonderful spouse. We want to fully give ourselves to that person. But we just can’t. We get frigid or impotent. Or we’re emotionally distant. No matter how hard we try, we just can’t be vulnerable with our spouse. The vow is in the way.

Or consider an inner vow to “never hope again.” How’s that work when we want to enter into worship and express our faith in God? Hebrews says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for” (Hebrew 11:1). So if we’ve vowed to never hope, that inner vow gets in the way of our faith.

Salvation Doesn’t Remove Inner Vows

The good news is, yes, inner vows can be removed. There’s 3 steps to removing inner vows we’ll cover in a minute.

But I’m assuming first that you’re a Christian, having accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. You’ve made the decision to follow him with your life. If not, don’t bother trying to remove an inner vow. Don’t waste your time. Only the power of the blood of Jesus on the cross removes inner vows. If you’re not under the blood, it won’t work.

Having said that, getting saved and putting your faith in Jesus does not automatically remove inner vows! We so often assume once we get saved, everything’ll be just peachy. Often, the opposite happens. The effects of the inner vow get worse. This is a blessing from God in disguise. God is intentionally overloading the inner vow because he wants to expose it, so he can remove it from blocking the identity he created us for.

Even as Christians, the vow is in place until we remove it. God is a gentleman and will not violate what we’ve decreed over our own lives. We were created in God’s image, with his creative authority. He gave us the tool of authority so we could bless. How we use that tool is up to us. Like a hammer, authority can bring incredible blessing or incredible damage, depending on how it’s used. We can curse and bind ourselves, as inner vows do, if we choose to.

How to Identify an Inner Vow with 3 Questions to Your Heart

Like we’ve said, this can be tricky because inner vows are often older than our memory and were made in our heart before we had words. But if you’re stuck, without any other reason to be, there’s possibly an inner vow in play. If you’re wanting to do something good, like have faith, enter into worship, fully give yourself to your spouse, join in a certain (wholesome!) activity, but you just can’t for some unknown reason – well, there could be an inner vow getting in the way.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it. “Holy Spirit, have I made an inner vow that’s blocking this?” Then hush and listen.

Inner vows were our way to protect ourselves from something we’re afraid of. So if you feel an irrational fear coming up, pray “Holy Spirit, help me hear my heart.” Then ask your heart, “Heart, why are you afraid?” (I’ve a whole post about how to talk to your heart.)

Sometimes I have to overtly tell my mind to hush so I can listen to my heart. Sometimes it takes a couple days or weeks. But in my quiet times, or when I’m alone in the car, I keep asking. “Heart, why are you afraid?”

Since often inner vows were made before we had language, our heart often answers with a memory. It’s your heart’s way of saying, “Because this happened.” Ok, now we’re onto something.

Ask your heart again, “Heart, because that happened, what judgement did you make about the world, about God, about other people, or about yourself?” And then the question to reveal the inner vow, “Ok Heart, therefore, what did you vow to protect yourself?” Bingo.

For example:

Q1: “Holy Spirit, help me hear my heart. Heart, why are you afraid?” A memory floods back of being abused as a toddler.

Q2: “Heart, because I was abused, what judgements did you make?” My parents won’t protect me. No one will protect me.

Q3: “Heart, therefore, what did you vow to protect yourself?” No one will protect me, therefore, I will protect myself. It’s all on me. I will take care of myself!

Bingo! There it is. This person will have a very hard time trusting in God’s provision, even if as an adult, mature, Christian, they really want to. Now they know where that irrational fear is coming from.

So out of that fear, they try to overly control the situation. “Thanks for the ride, but when are you leaving to pick me up? It’s a 20-minute drive from your office with traffic, so you need to leave by at least 9:10.” They really don’t want to be a control freak, but out of their fear, they just can’t help it. Now it all makes sense. The vow is trying to protect them and destroying their relationships in the process.

How to Remove Inner Vows in 2 Steps

So how do we get rid of an inner vow? 2 steps. Here we go.

Step 1: Confess & Repent. The sin that tempted us to make the vow was someone else’s sin against us. It wasn’t our sin, nor our fault. But our sinful response to it is on us. We confess our sin in making the vow, in trying to protect ourselves instead of trusting God. Keeping with our example above:

“Jesus, I judged you as never going to protect me. I believed a lie that no one would. So I made a vow to protect myself. I repent of making this vow and ask your forgiveness.”

Step 2: Renounce & Replace. Renounce the inner vow, and replace the lying judgement it was based on with God’s truth. Ask the Lord, “Jesus, what’s your truth you want me to cling to instead of that vow?” Sometimes the Lord answers with a Bible verse or two.

In our example, suppose the Lord gave Proverbs 18:10, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe”, and Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

So now we simply pray and renounce the vow and replace it with God’s truth. And when you pray the verses, personalize them. Make them yours.

“Lord Jesus, by the authority of your blood over me I renounce that inner vow to always protect myself and not trust anybody else, not even you. I ask you to remove it far from me in your loving forgiveness. Lord, I choose now to instead believe your truth, that you are my strong tower, and I’m safe when I run to you. Your plans are to prosper me and not harm me. You give me hope and a future. I choose to trust you.”

In the future, when that fear rises in our heart and tempts us to run back to all those old ways of responding, instead we go back to those verses. And we personalize them and say them out loud (if the location allows).

How about you?

Has this been helpful? What inner vows have you identified and replaced? With what truth? What differences are you seeing in your life? Tell us your story in the comments or shoot us an email. And please share if you think this post would help someone else.

The Key to Getting Free

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The concepts in this post come from an amazing book I read recently, Killing Kryptonite: Destroy What Steals Your Strength by John Bevere. This is an insanely practical book that will plus-up your relationship with Jesus to the next level. You can get your copy here. This is not an affiliate link. I get no commission if you click the link or buy the book. But you’ll get a huge benefit from reading it, I promise.

John Bevere gives a gentle but Biblically accurate message the church desperately needs to hear. He talks about, at a practical level, our relationship as Christians with sin, and how it steals who God created us to be. There’s not an ounce of condemnation in this book, just the loving truth God’s called John to bring us. The quotes in the rest of this post are from the book.

Three scenarios plague Christians when it comes to sin.

  1. The Complacent. Many Christians “choose to overlook sin because of their hardened hearts. They are immune to the reality of breaking God’s heart.” Unfortunately, whole denominations today don’t acknowledge sinful lifestyles as the destructive thing they are, and by doing so withhold the healing God wants to bring. After all, you don’t need healing if nothing’s wrong.
  2. The Defeated. Some Christians believe “the blood of Jesus is powerful enough to free us from the penalty, but not the bondage of sin.” They believe that in Christ we are spiritually made holy, whatever that means, but at a practical level it’s not necessary to live a sanctified lifestyle. It’s a convenient way to pretend to be a Christian so I feel good about myself, but still live however I want to.
  3. The Trapped. These Christians “struggle to break free from sin. They want out, but it has a tight grip on them… The shame of their sin holds them down.” John brings a powerful message to this group. You can get free and John shows you how by an example: his own.

John Bevere takes a brave risk in the book, sharing his own personal struggle with pornography, one of the most powerful and mentally addicting traps in our world today. Kudos to him for his radical vulnerability. I have no doubt it will facilitate a lot of Christians finally getting free.

So often we get in this cycle where we fall into the same old familiar sin, go through genuine heartfelt repentance, think we’re free, only to fall prey again to the same sin. Sometimes Christians give up. “Oh well, that’s just the way I am.” As if their sin is stronger than the blood of Jesus. It’s not. The problem’s not the strength of the sin, the problem’s the type of sorrow we have over it.

There’s two different types of sorrow, a worldly sorrow and a godly sorrow. John Bevere illustrates this so beautifully. In his struggle to get free from porn, he asked a world-renowned evangelist his church was hosting to pray for him. The man prayed with authority and power, but months later John was not free. About nine months afterward, John was crying out to the Lord to know him more intimately, and he was broken because his sin was interfering with his relationship with Jesus. Then he got free.

He didn’t understand and was asking the Lord about it. The Lord explained it to John like this: “When you opened up to the evangelist, you were afraid the sin of lust would keep you from the ministry you knew I’d called you to. You were fearful it would disqualify you. The focus of your sorrow was on you; it was a worldly sorrow.

“Nine months later, because you had been crying out to know me intimately, your heart was breaking because you were hurting My heart by your sin. You knew I had died to free you from this sin, and you hated participating in anything that was along the lines of what sent Me to the cross. The focus of your sorrow was on Me; it was a godly sorrow.”

John explains it further: “Sorrow of the world focuses on us—What are the consequences? Will I be judged? Will I be disqualified? Will I suffer from my sin? What will people think of me?—and so forth. Godly sorrow focuses on Jesus; I’ve hurt the heart of the One I love…”

Isn’t that good? “I’ve hurt the heart of the one I love.” I love that. That’s true repentance right there.

But why does it even matter? Who cares how you live? Will you Christians just get over yourselves and all your dumb rules anyway?

It’s not about rules for rules sake, or feeling good or self-righteous about ourselves. When we’re in love with Jesus, when we’ve done this heart exchange where he has my heart and I have his, then I can’t live in a way that breaks my lover’s heart. I just can’t do it. (Please forgive the shameless plug, but this is the subject of my own book, True Self: Sexual Integrity out of Intimacy with Jesus.)

John puts it really well, “Holiness therefore is not an end in itself, as legalists portray it. It’s the entranceway to true intimacy with Jesus.”

Once you’ve had an intimate experience with Jesus, up close and personal, you won’t trade it for anything. Jesus is the most beautiful, compassionate, gracious, funny, holy, lovely being in the whole universe. All you want to do is be closer to him. I’m addicted. I love his presence, and I get heart-broken over anything that interferes with our relationship.

Is that you? How close are you to Jesus? How intimate? It’s not a contest or a challenge. It’s real life. There is nothing more real in this world than Jesus. And where there is sin, it’s because we don’t understand how beautiful he is and how much our destructive behavior is keeping us from his presence. Tell us your story in the comments and please share if you think this would help someone else.

How to Say “Yes” to God’s Promises when Life’s Pain Says “No”

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Has the pain, abuse, and unfairness of your life erased God’s promises to you? You believed, but where are they? Instead of your Promised Land, all you see for miles around is desert. This post is for you. Caleb, through no fault of his own, finds himself in exactly the same situation. Check this out.

The Israelites had been miraculously delivered from Egypt. They’d seen God’s wonders and his glory over and over again in the desert. They tasted the sweetness of his faithfulness, and also the sting of his discipline at their rebellion (more than once).

But now, all that is just about to pay off. They’re at the borders of the Promised Land and just about to enter their inheritance. And that’s when it gets insane. All chaos breaks loose. The insanity in your life means God wants to break in and do something.

First, there’s internal attack. Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ co-leaders, more than that, his siblings, his own family, start bad-mouthing him (Numbers 12). It’s the struggle of religion vs God’s heart, the very same struggle that nailed Jesus to the cross. Miriam and Aaron don’t think Moses is following the rules properly. Actually he is, but not according to their understanding. In fact, their case against Moses is really thinly veiled jealously. The Lord has none of it and comes to Moses’ defense. God settles it quickly by turning Miriam leprous for a week.

Do you struggle with internal chaos, internal condemnation no matter what you do? God is on the verge of breakthrough in your life.

Then there’s external attack. Moses sends twelve spies to explore the Promised Land (Numbers 13). They all come back with the same report. The land is awesome, it’s flowing with milk and honey just like the Lord said. They bring back some of the fruit, huge grapes and other goodies. Oh, and by the way, the land’s filled with giants who are much stronger than we are. We looked like grasshoppers to them. The external obstacles are insurmountable.

Although they all agree on the state of the land, it’s inhabitants, and what they found, the twelve spies have two opposing recommended courses of action. Ten of the spies are terrified and say there’s no way we can do this. We’ll get slaughtered.

But the other two, Joshua and Caleb, are all for taking the land. They have a promise from God that he’ll be with them and they can do it. So I imagine it goes down something like this:

Ten Spies: “The people in the land are huge giants, infinitely bigger and stronger and more powerful than us!”

Joshua and Caleb: “I know, right! It’s going to be exhilarating beating those guys! I can’t wait, let’s go! This is going to be so epic! They’ll sing songs about us for centuries! We have a promise from God, we can’t lose! Stinks to be them. Let’s go do this!”

But the other ten convince the people not to trust God and rebel. They talk about stoning Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, heading back to Egypt, and just forgetting the whole thing. Quitting. This is not what we thought it would be. It’s just too hard. Time to cut and run.

Are you going to quit on the promise of God in your life? When life gets impossible, God’s promise is on the verge of fulfillment. Just like with the Israelites, the hardest struggles, both internally and externally, are on the borders of our Promised Land.

And you know the scariest part about this? God honors your choice. The people rejected God’s promise and chose to believe in their fear instead. And you could say they benefitted from it. They lived out their lives in safety, not having to take the risks that God’s promises required. But it was a hard, meaningless, bland life in the desert, on the border of God’s rejected promises. Nothing horrifically bad happened. But nothing amazingly good happened either. Like a ship chained to the dock, or a Lamborghini that never sees the light of day outside the garage, they all died in the desert of complacency. How sad. Don’t let this be your tragedy.

I think the saddest part is, Joshua and Caleb also waited 40 years. That’s the part that seems really unfair to me. Even though they had nothing to do with it, they were caught in the consequences of their unbelieving community. They were ready to grab God’s promises with both hands, but they had to wait 40 years too.

But it was worth it! They did eventually see the fulfillment of God’s promises in their lives. And this is the most amazing part of the story—how Caleb finally entered the Promised Land. Think about this.

It would have been easy for his passion to grow cold through the pain of life. He could’ve turned bitter over the unfairness of it all. 40 years in the desert? Are you kidding me?!? Many of us turn bitter in the desert. Do you know someone who has? Have you?

But Caleb didn’t. He just became more and more determined to seize God’s promises when he finally got the chance. Listen to him talk to Joshua, who had seceded Moses as leader, when the people are finally ready, 40 years later, to enter the Promised Land, really this time.

Keep in mind reading this that in war, you want the high ground. So the “hill country” Caleb’s talking about here is where the enemies have the high ground. It’s the hardest land to take by far. There are only two types of people who would even attempt it. Soon to be dead fools who don’t have a lick of common sense, or soon to be victorious recipients of a promise from God.

Caleb to Joshua: “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was 40 years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’

“Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for 45 years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, 85 years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites [the giants] were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” (Joshua 14:6b-12)

The guy was 85 and wanting to go take the hardest part of the land! And this time, he would not be put off. He had yet another promise from God he was believing. I could see people saying, “But dude, you’re 85! How about you plan the battle, but we’ll go do the heavy lifting on this one.”

Caleb: “Don’t you ‘but dude’ me! I’ve waiting 45 years for this, and I’m going giant-whomping!”

And you know what? The “unfair” delay really wasn’t. It made Caleb’s character shine all the more brightly and made his victory all the more spectacular. The promises of God triumph over the pain and unfairness of life.

God didn’t forget about Caleb. And he hasn’t forgotten you. What promises have you seen fulfilled in your life that you thought were gone? What promises are you still waiting for? Tell us in the comments, and please share if this post would bless and encourage someone else.

How to Escape the Abnormal Normal

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It happens to all of us. We all grow up in a household, our family of origin. Every family has different strengths and weaknesses. Even if our brains know better, how we grew up is all our hearts know. Good or bad, how we grew up is what our hearts think is normal.

There are no perfect parents, though some are more wounded and deceived than others. That’s not the child’s fault. It‘s not your fault (or your credit) how you were raised.

“Good” parents and “bad” parents are a myth. All parents did something right. They at least conceived you, and yes, that was a good thing! Many parents love their children but don’t know how to express it, thinking their child knows when the child doesn’t and desperately needs that overt affirmation.

Being a parent is not a binary “good” or “bad” thing. It’s a continuous gradient. All parents could’ve done some things better and could’ve done some things a lot worse. I’m not making excuses for our parents, but it’s not about blaming them either.

The point is we all have things in our upbringing we accept as normal without even thinking to question them. But they aren’t normal. For example:

  • Maybe we weren’t loved unless we performed, so we think our value comes from what we do.
  • Maybe the family’s image was more important than we were, so we believe how we look on the outside is more important than our heart motivation on the inside.
  • Maybe our family members all lied so we think that’s normal. It’s just want you do.
  • Maybe there wasn’t proper respect in the home, so we don’t respect authority and have a hard time taking direction from our employer.
  • Maybe our parents were emotionally disconnected from us out of their own wounding, so we vowed we’d take care of ourselves. We don’t let anyone come close.
  • Maybe we were abused, physically, emotionally, and/or verbally, and now we’re the abusers. We hate it but don’t know any other way to act.
  • Maybe in your family children were possessions to be managed, rather than blessings to be stewarded. Many millennials raise their families in this trap.

We may not have liked it, but we grew up this way. Doesn’t everyone?

Our family’s abnormal dysfunction becomes our plumb line for what’s “normal.” It’s what we gravitate to in our relationships. We gravitate to others who meet our expectation. We think everyone’s this way. We confuse “common” with “normal.” But something being common does not make it normal.

So often we hate aspects of how we were raised, but we don’t know any other way to live. So we continue the cycle with our own kids, handing down the dysfunction generation after generation.

Is there a way to break out of the cycle? Yes! The good news is Jesus died on a cross so we could break out of this cycle. He came to set us free, reconciling us to God and to each other. There is another way to live.

So how do we break out of the mold? Here are five practical steps to escape the abnormal normal we grew up with.

1) Want more. We have to be dissatisfied with our current situation. We have to hate our own sin enough to want to change. Sometimes God’s greatest gift to us is a life-crash. Something happens in our life where we can no longer deny that (a) a problem exists, and (b) it’s our problem.

You do not have to live stuck. That’s a choice you make. I absolutely hate it when I hear people say, “Oh, well, that’s just the way I am.”

  • “I’m overweight and always will be. I’m just big-boned.” (There’s no such thing, BTW.)
  • “I smoke/drink/dope. That’s just what I do.”
  • “I’m just not a patient person.” (And they say it like it’s a badge.)

No, that’s not just the way you are! That’s the way you’re choosing to be. You can make another choice if you decide you want to.

2) Renounce the benefit. The problem is, the dysfunction is giving us a benefit. We have to come to the place where we hate our sin more than we love the benefit. Sometimes our life getting worse and worse is actually God, in his great love and mercy for us, turning up the heat to bring us to that point.

A man came for prayer ministry because he couldn’t control his anger directed at his family. The prayer minister asked him what the benefit was. The conversation went like this:

“There’s no benefit to my behavior! I’m destroying my family!”

“There is a benefit you’re reaping, or you wouldn’t be acting like this. Let’s pray and ask the Holy Spirit what the benefit is. Then listen to your heart.”

After they prayed and waited, the man said, “You know what? There is a benefit. When I’m angry, I don’t feel the pain. And it prevents people from getting close enough to hurt me.” Bingo.

3) Be teachable. This means owning the problem. We do not have to be a slave to how we were raised. We can make a different choice.

That’s what grace is all about. Grace is not just about covering our sins. Yes, it does that, and that’s wonderful. Our past no longer haunts us. But if we still live in the muck Jesus died to set us free from, we’re wasting his grace.

Grace does so much more than take away our sins. It empowers us to live without them. It empowers us to live free. But living in freedom is a learned skill. We have to learn another way of living. We have to learn to not default to the old, comfortable dysfunction.

Positive change happens when we stop blaming everyone else and decide to change ourselves. The change other people need is on them. Be the change you want to see in your own life. The only way to learn to do that is to be willing to learn.

4) Find a healthy coach. Whether it’s a counselor, a pastor, or a best friend, go through the journey with someone else to encourage you onward with wisdom and unconditional acceptance when it gets hard. And it will get hard. Everything worthwhile does.

A healthy coach will not try to fix you. And that’s what you want, a coach not a rescuer. A healthy coach gives wise advice, but their sense of well-being is not threatened if you don’t take it. They leave that on you.

For example, youth today are yearning to be mentored by the older generation without being controlled. They want to be healed, not fixed.

5) Don’t give up. If you don’t give up, you win. Eventually. You didn’t get into this situation overnight; you won’t get out overnight. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

In our microwave culture, we want it fast and we want it now. But real, lasting, fulfilling, life-change often doesn’t happen that way. It’s a slow, simmering process. God, in his great love and mercy for us, only gives us as much healing as we can handle at a time. So we have to be in this for the long haul.

Does this resonate? Where are you in this cycle? What made the difference? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.

How to Get Unstuck

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Are you stuck? We all get stuck at some point. Is it an addiction you just can’t lick? Is it depression that just won’t end? Is it a mid-life crisis, realizing you’ve ended up with some boring, dead-up life and your dreams have all but vanished? Feel like you just can’t get there from here? I’ve been stuck. This post is a plan for getting unstuck.

Here’s how you get unstuck. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), and he is the path for getting unstuck. I know that sounds all Christian Happy Quippy, like those trite and insincere things we say to each other on Sunday mornings. Don’t bounce to another web page, hang with me here a minute. There’s a very practical path hidden in that verse that we’re going to unpack in this post. So read on, Precious Stuck One, for the path to freedom.

1) Jesus is the way.

This is where it starts. Commitment on our part. Jesus is already committed to walk this path with us. He’s sacrificed his life. He’s uber-invested in your freedom. Are you as invested in your own freedom as he is?

We think we are, but are we really? Are we committed to the freedom Jesus wants for us, or only to freedom on our terms? Are we committed to success that’s easy, convenient, doesn’t hurt, and doesn’t violate our rights? Sometimes we’re comfortable with our bondage.

Are we willing to sacrifice for success on his terms? His success comes through painful perseverance, long suffering, laying down our rights, and dying to ourselves. Are we willing? His success is hard fought, but it’s much more satisfying, and it comes with a calling and an authority. We have authority over what we’ve been delivered from.

2) Jesus is the truth.

If we’re going to get unstuck, we need to be friends with the truth. The truth is often not politically correct, comfortable, safe, or easy. But it is good, and it is true. It’s time to agree with God’s truth.

When the culture (or our desires) clash with what God’s revealed in his word, we have to let God win every time. For example:

The culture says you can sleep with anyone, any time. But we wait for marriage, because:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 NIV)

The culture says we’re a cosmic accident. But we believe we’re intentionally designed by God, because:

You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13-16 NIV)

The culture says you can change your gender and your race. But we don’t recreate ourselves and decide who we want to be. That’s actually spiritual rebellion. We discover who God’s made us to be, because:

What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” Does the pot exclaim, “How clumsy can you be?” How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said to its father, “Why was I born?” or if it said to its mother, “Why did you make me this way?” (Isaiah 45:9-10 NLT)

The culture says we have to earn our value and the right to be loved. But we know we have intrinsic value. Just because we exist, God loves us, because:

God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

The culture says we can terminate a pregnancy if it’s inconvenient. But we trust God and walk with him through the pain of single parenthood, because:

[God is] a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. (Psalm 68:5a) [That totally includes single moms.]

The culture says anyone developing emotional problems after an abortion was weak to start with. But we speak the truth about trauma and offer God’s hope, healing, forgiveness, and acceptance to everyone who wants it, because:

He has sent me [Jesus] to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61:1b-3a)

The culture says to ship the illegal aliens back where they belong. But we do good to the foreigners and the aliens among us specifically to honor the Lord, because:

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

God’s word needs to define our opinions. We take the word of God at face value, and we’re willing to change our minds.

3) Jesus is the life.

We live his adventure. He’s the breath in our lungs and the hope in our heart. He is the life we live. Our life revolves around him.

Jesus is our lifestyle. Are we living in the light of God’s truth? Or are we living in the culture’s comfortable lies? Are we committed to sexual purity in our lives, waiting for marriage, or have we rationalized a sinful lifestyle? Do we tithe and give generously, or do we live in fear with a scarcity mindset? Do we spend intimate time with the lover of our soul, Jesus our lover-king, or do we just throw him a bone and check the box on Sundays?

Is our life style bent around ourselves and our comfort, or around him and his truth? This isn’t legalism. This is passion. When you’re passionate for your lover, pleasing them is light and pleasurable. If we’re passionate for Jesus, we can’t live in a way that breaks his heart.

In the West, we like to compartmentalize everything. We have our family box, our work box, our entertainment box, our church box, and our God box. We like to think that as long as our God box is the most important box, God’s happy. But that’s totally not true! God does not want to be in the most important box. He wants to be the most important thing in every box.

You could say it this way. Jesus doesn’t want to be the most important thing in our lives. He wants to be the only thing. Coach Lombardi didn’t realize he was talking about Jesus when he made his famous quote, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” But he was. Jesus is Winning!

And the only way for us to win at life and get unstuck is to think so, too. When Jesus is everything, all the other things fall into place. Not that we won’t have problems, we will. Sometimes really painful, unexpected ones that hit us like a sledgehammer. But our focus isn’t on the problem, it’s on Jesus and figuring out what he’s doing in our lives through the problem. It’s about being real and honest with him, telling him the truth about our pain and accepting his joy in the middle of it.

So there’s the blueprint for freedom. Commit to Jesus the way, agree with Jesus the truth, and live Jesus as your lifestyle. The result is a deeper level of freedom and intimacy with him than you’ve ever known.

Does this resonate with you? Does it challenge you? What parts? Please share on social media and tell us what you think in the comments below. It’s time to hear from you.