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.

Why New Year Is in the Dead of Winter

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It’s fascinating to me that our New Year here in the West occurs in the dead of Winter. I know other cultures’ New Year occurs at different times of the year, and that’s great. I’m sure God is speaking to all cultures with the timing of their New Year celebration, but I’m only qualified to write about my own culture. What is God saying to us in the West?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the New Year to be at the start of Spring, when everything’s budding and coming back to life? Maybe in some cultures it is; what an awesome time that must be. But God worked through our history to make our New Year when all the leaves are off the trees and everything’s dead. Why do you suppose that is?

I’ve heard a pastor say that leaves don’t actually change color in Fall. They reveal the true color they actually are when not getting overridden by all that green chlorophyll. The point he was making is, in the Autumn of your life, your true colors will show.

What are your hidden colors? Do they reflect the grace and healing of God’s empowerment in your life, or do they still reflect your wounding?

There’s nothing wrong, by the way, with being in a place of wounding. Acknowledging where you’re at is the first step to get healing. Run to God in those times, not away from him. The problem comes when we run away from God and to our chlorophyll of choice to hide our wounded colors, in our own strength.

What is your chlorophyll of choice? Control? Addiction? Entitlement? Performance? (Personally, I’m really good at performance, more about that later.)

Have you ever wondered why we don’t go straight from Fall to Spring? After all, why can’t the new leaves just push out the old? Why do we have to go through a cold, bare-root season first? Why do we have to get stripped down to nothing? Maybe there’s something necessary going on inside the trunk of the tree that’s getting ready for Spring. Maybe Spring couldn’t come without this time of preparation.

What happens when circumstances and struggles reveal our wounding and our chlorophyll of choice stops working? What happens when all the leaves are off the trees of our lives? Maybe when we’re stripped down to the bare trunk, maybe that’s when we hear God best. Maybe because then we have to and we don’t have any other choice. Maybe out of his great love and mercy for us, he’s stripped away everything that distracted us from his voice.

I think God considers that place the beginning. That’s where his New Year starts. Because when all the outside is stripped away, there’s nothing left but to work on the heart. And that’s what he’s always wanted, to heal our wounding and give us a new heart.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)

I’m up for that. My hidden colors were worthlessness and rejection. The lie I believed was, “I am unlovable.” My chlorophyll of choice was being nice, being a servant to all. Dying to myself, literally, to a fault. My bitter root expectation was, “You’re going to reject me. So I’m not going to give you a reason. I’m going to be as lovable as possible, so that when (not if) you reject me, it’s on you.” We call this performance orientation, and I got really good at it, unfortunately.

God had to take me through a bare-root, cold Winter season. He had to strip away all the false leaves and false colors I used to protect my heart, in order to take that structure of lies and inner vows and bitter root expectations down.

Ironically, it’s when I started coming out of those lies that all disaster broke loose. My family fell apart and disintegrated. It hurt. But it was a season. It was only a season (a long season, several years), and I’m coming through it now. Sometimes the enemy’s greatest deception is to trick us into believing the painful season we’re in is forever, which brings desperation and despair. It’s not forever. It’s only a season. Trusting God brings hope through the pain.

He’s still working on me, but I’ve come a long way. He’s brought me into a fresh, bright Spring the last few years. He’s restored relationships I thought would never be restored, while others I still wait for. And he’s using his chlorophyll to work his colors into me.

How about you? What season are you in, here at the turn of the New Year? Tell us in the comments. If you’re in a cold, Winter, bare-root season, we’d love to pray with you. If you’ve come through such a season, please share your story; it will encourage others. And please share on social media if you think this post would bless others.

You Are Not What You Do

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For so many of us our identity is in what we do or what we’ve done. Especially men – what’s the first question we ask each other when we meet another man? “What do you do?” There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s safe small talk. But that’s not who we are.

God loves us based on our position not our accomplishments – our position as His son or daughter. Nothing we ever accomplish (good or bad) can ever change that. Nothing we do can make Him love us more or less than He does in this moment. In every moment. He’s that consistent.

We all say we believe that, but many of us secretly don’t. I say “secretly” because often it’s secret even from ourselves. We can test ourselves to see if we inwardly believe we are what we do, though. When we get mad at someone for disagreeing with us, when we take someone’s disagreement with what we said or did as a personal affront, it’s often because we believe that we are what we do. “If you attack what I do or say, you’re attacking me!” Do you see it?

You are special to God because you are you. You are valuable because you bear the image of God (see Genesis 1:26-27) whether you realize it or not. The trick is to understand who you really are, the unique person He made you to be.

Psalm 139:13-14 says, “For 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.” So before you were even born, before you had done anything good or bad, you were God’s wonderful work. And nothing we do can ever undo His work.

So let’s stop trying to be what we do. Let’s discover and walk in who we really are. Ask Him to take you on a journey of discovery.

Have you started this journey? What are you discovering? Do you identify with this? Tell us your story in the comments. What do you think?

Spiritual Neurosis

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We have compassion on people acting badly when we understand their motivation. Not that we put up with it, but then we can respond from a spirit of love rather than from self-righteousness (which doesn’t help anybody). So if we want to speak life to a lost and dying world, it’s important to understand the difference between spiritual psychosis and spiritual neurosis. It’s important to check what’s under the hood.

I heard a pastor once (sorry, don’t remember who), explain the difference between psychotic and neurotic people like this.

A psychotic person believes 2 + 2 = 5. With all their being. They are absolutely, totally convinced. Nothing can persuade them otherwise. They have swallowed the lie hook, line, and sinker. They believe a false reality as if it were true. And they live accordingly, not understanding that the negative consequences in their lives are the result of believing a lie.

A neurotic person, on the other hand, knows 2 + 2 = 4, but they don’t like it. They really wish 2 + 2 equaled 5, and they may even pretend it does, but deep down they know it’s false. They are not friends with the truth. In fact, though they know what the truth is, they hate it for being true.

In my humble opinion, it’s the spiritually neurotic people who are the ones that get angry when sensitive spiritual subjects come up.

A spiritually psychotic atheist will just laugh at you for believing in God. Your belief won’t bother them, and they might even feel sorry for you. But a spiritually neurotic atheist will get mad at you for bringing up the subject. They’re trying as hard as they can to pretend the truth they know is true is not true, and you popping their fantasy bubble isn’t helping. They’ve spent years building that bubble, and they don’t like to be reminded about how poorly it’s working. Spiritual neurosis.

Same with abortion. The angriest pro-choicers in the room are often post-abortive themselves, trying desperately to pretend they did nothing wrong. But their wounding keeps getting in the way, and you as a pro-lifer are not helping them ignore it. Spiritual neurosis.

Often, at the core of spiritual neurosis is some degree of spiritual psychosis. We’re believing a lie that we don’t even realize we’re believing. These can be hard to weed out because we’ve believed the lie for so long it’s become a core assumption deep in our being.

The goodness of God to us is he doesn’t let those things lie there forever. Believing the lie (or pretending to) often gives us some relief from pain temporarily. But when the season comes where God wants to heal us, what worked before stops working. That’s the grace of God in our life, to get us to deal with it, go through the pain to his healing on the other side.

Does this resonate? Have you been, or are you now, going through a season where what worked before is no longer working? What is the truth God’s teaching you? Tell us in the comments or shoot us an email. And please share on Facebook if you think this would help someone else.

God Teaches Life Like A Physics Class

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Being a math guy, I was rather upset about this. Most subjects are similar to mathematics. The teacher gives a lecture, and then you go practice what you were just taught in the homework. Safe. Predictable. Totally not how God works. God teaches life like a physics class.

In physics, you go into the lab first, blow something up, and then get the lecture explaining why it blew up. The lecture is very similar to the mathematics lecture (although in unrecognizably different notation). But because you’ve had the experience, the lecture makes a lot more sense and you learn the material at a deeper level.

I wish God would prep me each day for what I’m going to face that day. Give me the lecture. Then, when the thing happens, I’ll handle the situation right. The problem with that, from God’s point of view, is I could handle it without him. And out of his great love for us, he just won’t have that. He wants to do it with us.

So every day life is a lab. Something unexpected happens, things don’t work out. We don’t “get it right.” We mess up. Then he gives us the instruction. And we have to walk through it with him to keep from totally burning down the lab. He teaches us as we go along because he wants to live it with us.

So what happens? I “get it right” a lot less than if God would just do it my way. And I care about “getting it right.” He is healing me from Performance Orientation, the (often unconscious) belief that we have to earn love by performing. This is epidemic in the church today. We struggle and strive to earn by hard work what we already have by inheritance.

But fortunately for me, God is less concerned about my “getting it right” than I am. He’s more about the process, less about the goal. Being God, he can snap his fingers and accomplish the goal anytime he wants. But he knows we need the process.

This isn’t very efficient. But God’s not into efficiency. Being an engineer, that first time I heard that, I was convinced it was heresy! I am all about efficiency. But it’s true – God’s not. God’s about the process. He doesn’t care if it takes longer to get us where he wants us; he’s got all the time in the world.

Now if not “getting it right” means falling into sin, God cares a lot more about it. And he has given us a textbook that, if we read and follow it, will spare us a lot of smoke alarms going off in the lab. But if we’re determined not to, God will let us blow up the lab, and then come back and show us why that was a really bad idea.

However, a lot of “getting it right” isn’t outright rebellious sin. Making a mistake is not sin. Here’s a free hint: If you’re afraid of making a mistake, or get angry when others do, you have Performance Orientation. God wants to heal you. God would much rather have us try, fail, and learn, than never try. See the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.

Does this resonate? Please share it on social media. And tell us your story in the comments, or shoot us an email. What “failed labs” in your life has God used most powerfully? Your story is very encouraging to others. Tell it here.

When the Hurt Rules the Heart

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We are three part beings – body, soul, and spirit. And our soul is composed of 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. If 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.

If our emotions are in charge, we’re focused on what will make us happy in this moment, ignoring the long term consequences. We can lose our grasp on cause ‘n’ effect completely, and get into addictions – food, drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, TV – whatever makes us feel like we feel good at the moment. We know the pain is crouching ready to pounce any moment, but we delay it for just one more.

Too many Christians live out one of these two tragedies. That’s not life, that’s just existence. But Jesus died and lives so we can have abundant life (John 10:10).

In contrast, when we live from our spirit, our will is in charge. Our spirit is connected to Jesus, 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 has chosen to go, but it should never set our direction.

So how about it? Will you ask God to help you live out of your will? Will you choose to believe what God says about you and blow off your fear and the other lies our hurt and the enemy so realistically impress upon us?

I’ve got close experience, either myself or with family members, with both of these two deceptions. How about you? Do you identify with either? Have you learned to live out of your will and from your spirit? Do you still struggle? Tell us your story in the comments.

What Fast-Tracks Inner Healing?

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Our inner healing often takes a season, just like physical healing. God, in his great mercy, only goes as fast as we can handle. Certainly our unwillingness or wrong motivations can slow it down, but if we’re willing and our motivations are right, is there anything we can do to speed it up? Is there something we can do to fast-track our inner healing as much as possible?

It turns out there is, and it’s illustrated best by buffalo and cattle. This analogy may seem way off-topic, but hang with me and I’ll bring it home.

When a herd of cattle on the plain see a thunderstorm coming, they run away from it. They are naturally afraid of it, and they quite logically run the other way.

Buffalo, on the other way, run toward the storm. They don’t fear the thunderstorm any less cattle do, but they’re just smarter about how to deal with it. They run directly through it. Since they are running the opposite direction the storm is moving, they minimize their time in the storm. Pretty smart, huh? They exit the storm as quickly as possible and get to the freshly watered, tender grass and clear weather on the other side.

The cattle, meanwhile, can’t outrun the storm. And by running away from it (that is, the same direction it’s moving), they actually maximize their time in the storm. The storm passes them by very slowly. They spend a lot more time it in, and get a lot more wet, cold, and uncomfortable than the buffalo.

What about us? John Sandford, the founder of Elijah House, which is one of the key ministries that taught the Church how to do inner healing, said, “We must embrace the fireball of pain.”

What?!? Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s a buffalo strategy. God doesn’t need us to re-live the pain and re-traumatize us all over again, but we need to get in touch with it so God can open it up enough to heal it. He’s the great physician, and any surgeon has to open the wound in order to heal it.

When we embrace the pain, when we trust him enough to go there, we fast-track our healing. Be a buffalo.

I can testify that embracing the pain, letting God open me up like a Christmas turkey, really hurt. But it was over really fast, and I made progress in one or two sessions that could’ve otherwise taken years. And this was for big-deal stuff, life-wrenching stuff, like a marriage falling apart. I feel so much better now than before being healed. The freedom I gained was so worth it!

Does this resonate? Can you think of a time where you either embraced the pain or in vain ran from it? Which worked better for you? Are you still running? Share your story in the comments or shoot us an email. And please give this a share if you think it would help someone else. You can click on the Facebook button below (or the other social media buttons) to share really easy and fast.

What Blocks Inner Healing?

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Ever wonder why some people just can’t seem to get unstuck? Christians even? They’ve been going through inner healing for 10 years and look like they’re going to be for another 10 years, but they never seem to make any headway? Or they seem to making progress, but then stumble and fall in the same devastating sin all over again (for example, having an affair, or caving to an addiction, etc)? Why can’t they get really free and move on? What’s blocking their healing?

Meanwhile, other people that are wounded much more deeply sometimes get totally healing over a season of their life and totally move on – free and never susceptible to the same sins again. Why is that?

John Sanford, the founder of Elijah House, asked the Lord this question. He and his wife Paula ministered to a large number of people over the course of their ministry, and saw many people with an equal level of wounding. Some would get total freedom and never look back, while others would appear to get healing only to fall back into the same sins over and over again. What made the difference?

This is my paraphrase of what the Lord told John Sanford. It depends on the motivation of the person seeking the healing, why they are seeking freedom from their pain.

“If they are seeking healing because they realize their wounding is keeping them form serving me fully,” the Lord said to John Sanford, “and their hearts desire is to serve me with their whole being, they will get complete freedom and keep it, because they are seeking to serve me.

“If, on the other hand, they want relief from their pain only so they can live the good life, their healing won’t stick, because they aren’t really seeking me. They just want to live the good life.”

The Kingdom of God is so upside-down from how we naturally think. This illustrates what Jesus said in Luke 9:24, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

If we seek the good life, we’ll never find it, and our lives will be one endless, meaningless, futile search. But if we’re willing to sacrifice the good life in favor of living for God, accepting suffering gladly to see his Kingdom advanced, then we’ll find a life better than we ever thought possible.

How about you? Have you seen this at work in your life or that of others? Have you experienced giving up something and then having the Lord give it back to you redeemed, different, but better than you ever thought it could be? Tell us in the comments? And please share (buttons below for your sharing convenience) if you think this thought would be helpful to someone else.