How We Get Trapped and How We Get Free

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The worst bondages are the ones we don’t realize we have. We’ve been like this so long, it seems normal. But it’s not normal. Bondages keep us from living our best life, and Jesus has healing for us. But to live in his freedom, we need to understand how we get trapped and how we get free.

Here’s the essence of inner healing in a nutshell.

How We Get Trapped

Typically, someone sins against us. That is not our fault. Never. Maybe you were abused, lied to, betrayed, rejected, abandoned, or something worse. No one deserves to be treated like that. Ever.

But what happens next is our fault. We vow to protect our own heart instead of trusting God. It happens like this.

When we are sinned against, we make negative judgements about ourselves, about others, about God, and about the world. Here are some examples:

  • “I’m dirty.”
  • “People hate me.”
  • “God doesn’t love me.”
  • “It’s dangerous to be too happy.”
  • “I don’t have value.”
  • “I’m only loved when I’m being good.”
  • “Emotions aren’t safe.”
  • “No one will ever protect me.”
  • “I shouldn’t be alive.”
  • “I’m the wrong gender.”

Based on that judgment, we form a negative expectation of how we will be treated.

  • “People will always reject me.”
  • “Everyone will betray me.”
  • “I will only be loved if I perform.”
  • “Men only love me as an object.”
  • “A father will always leave me.”
  • “I will always be betrayed.”
  • “I will never receive anything good from life.”
  • “People will never accept me as a man.”

Have you ever met someone, talked innocent small talk with them for 10 seconds, and thought, “I don’t know why, but I just hate this person!” You are actually feeling their expectation.

There are demonic spirits that read that expectation and say, “Ok, Dave expects everyone to reject him. Let me help him with that!” And that expectation goes out like a cloud from that person, tempting everyone they come into contact with to reject them as soon as possible.

Then the person is rejected, which strengthens their expectation, and around the track we go again.

Based on that expectation, we make an inner vow to protect our own heart.

  • “I will never let anyone get close to me so their inevitable rejection won’t hurt.”
  • “I will always be the good boy or good girl so people will love me.”
  • “I will protect myself.”
  • “I will hurt them before they hurt me.”
  • “I will not have emotions.”
  • “I will never be like my parent.”
  • “I want to die.”
  • “I will be the other gender.”

This is our sin. We are protecting our own heart, instead of taking our pain to God and trusting him to protect our heart. It’s the same as in the Garden of Eden. We are being our own god.

Our inner vows are our prison bars.

Living in an isolated prison cell is pretty safe. But it’s a prison cell. It’s not living; it’s just existing. It’s cut off from joy, from love, and from everything else that makes life worth living. We will never live the amazing adventure God has for us in that place. He created us for so much more.

It’s like a boat being chained to the dock. It’ll never risk going out in deep water where so many other boats have sunk. But being chained to the dock is not what that boat was created for, and it’ll never be fulfilled there.

Yes, those inner vows keep us safe, but it’s a miserable safety. It’s a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

Are you chained to the dock by your inner vows? Jesus created us to sail out into deep water. True, it’s not safe out there, but God is good. Jesus will be our safety, whatever happens.

How to Recognize an Inner Vow

Often, we form inner vows very early in life, even before we have language. That makes them very hard to articulate. Or even recognize. We’ve had them virtually our whole life; they seem normal. So how do we recognize when an inner vow is in play when they are hidden from us?

A big clue is when we have a mile of reaction to an inch worth of offense. For example, maybe we fly off the handle in a rage when the other person really didn’t do anything rage-worthy. Ask the Holy Spirit if an inner vow is affecting our behavior. Ask your heart.

Another big clue is when negative behavior is confronted in our lives and we say, “That’s just the way I am.” Perhaps, but that’s a choice we make. That’s not how we were created to be, and Jesus has freedom and healing available, if we want it.

How We Get Free

So how do we get free from inner vows? Here’s a 5 step process. We do this in prayer, and it’s best to go through it with someone else, like your spouse, pastor, Christian counselor, or friend. Someone who understands inner healing and can support and lead you through it. But if you don’t have that safe person, do it just you and Jesus.

  1. Identify the judgement, the expectation, and the inner vow. These questions can help you through this process.
  • What happened to you?
  • Because that happened, what did you decide about the world? Yourself? Others? God? (This is the judgement.)
  • Because you believed that to be true, what did you come to expect?
  • Because of that, how did you vow to protect your heart?
  • Repent for making the inner vow. Break it, declaring out loud that you no longer hold to that vow. Take it to the foot of the cross and leave it there.
  • Renounce the benefit. In some way, that vow was keeping you safe. If you don’t know the benefit, ask the Holy Spirit; he’ll tell you.
  • Replace the judgement and expectation with God’s truth. For example, if the expectation was to be rejected, maybe God’s truth is Hebrew 13:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Replacement happens with practice over time. In this example, when tempted to expect rejection, or when feeling it, say (out loud if possible), “No, God will never leave me nor forsake me.”

We can walk in the freedom God has for us. We can walk in Jesus’ healing. Having gone through this process several times, I can tell you, freedom is so much better than the prison cell. Let the Holy Spirit take you there.

Your Turn

Have you had a mile of reaction to an inch of offense? What inner vows have you identified in your life? What judgements and expectations? What is God’s truth that sets you free? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share this post. Let’s get this message out there.

How to Validate Someone’s Pain

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As Christians, when we see someone hurting, we all want to help. That’s good, we should. The problem is, many of us have never been trained how to really help someone who’s hurting. We don’t know how, or even what to do. Often, unfortunately, well-meaning Christians do more harm than good.

As the church stands on the brink of the Third Great Awakening, our churches are going to be overwhelmed by a flood of hurting people. We need to get comfortable being around people who are hurting, without trying to fix them.

And it’s not just the unsaved coming into our churches who are hurting. There’s a huge number of people in our churches right now who are hurting. But they’re hiding their hurt because:

  1. They think they’re the only one. Look at all these happy people. I’m the only one who’s faking it. No, believe me, you’re really not.
  2. They’re afraid of being judged. Because either they have been in the past, or they’ve seen other people with similar issues be treated as “less than.”

So our lack of understanding is actually preventing people from getting the healing Jesus has for them. And that’s the last thing any of us want.

If you can’t go to the people of God when you’re hurting, where can you go?

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Before trying to solve the problem, or offering them help, there’s something important we need to do first. And it makes all the difference.

The single most important thing you can do to help someone who’s hurting is validate their pain. Before you do anything else, validate their pain. Validate how they feel. This gives them acceptance instead of judgement, and it creates a safe place.

So how do we do this?

Let Them Hurt

That sounds really strange, doesn’t it? Let them hurt?!? That’s not compassionate! Let me explain. I don’t mean ignore them or their pain. I don’t mean being cold or distant or uncompassionate or insensitive.

Here’s the deal. When someone’s going through their valley of the shadow of death, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually, we naturally want to find them an off-ramp. Out of compassion, we want to fix the problem for them. Don’t do that, because you can’t. Only Jesus is the healer.

What am I supposed to do then? I’m glad you asked.

Be Present

There’s a great model in Job 2:11-13.

They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. –Job 2:13

Job’s friends normally get a bad rap, and rightfully so. But they got it right for a whole week, when they just sat with him in the ashes of his life, and didn’t say anything. Then they opened their mouths, and it was all downhill from there.

Ok, so practically, how do we do this? Proverbs 18:21 says, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” What we say, and don’t say, is important.

What to NOT Say

Too often, we unintentionally discount people’s pain. The following are things well-meaning Christians often say, but are not helpful because they discount the person’s pain.

  • “I understand.”
     No, you really don’t. You haven’t experienced what they’re going through. And even if you have, you haven’t experienced it as them, with their backstory, their fears, and their previous hurts. They are a different person and are experiencing it differently than you would.
  • “I went through something similar…”
     This is not the time to tell your story. Listen to and validate their story. Telling your story, when they are trying to tell you theirs, minimizes their story and discounts their pain. Be a real listener. Don’t be a wait-to-talker.
  • “You’ll get through it.”
     Again, this minimizes their pain. What they are really hearing is, “No one understands me, my pain, what I’m going through, or how sacred I am. And it’s not ok for me to tell them. I better hide it.”
  • “Just have faith.”
     Whether you mean it or not, they hear condemnation: “They think I’m a bad Christian because I’m going through this.”
  • “God’s got this.”
     While very true, this totally discounts their pain. Whether you mean it or not, what they hear is, “You’re wrong to feel bad about this. Why are you so upset? Relax, God will work it all out.” While a great thing to tell yourself when you’re going through painful times, don’t flippantly say it to others.

Ok, so what should we say? What do we say to validate someone’s pain?

What to Say

Here are some great things to say. These things make the other person feel heard, and create a safe space for them to share and seek healing.

  • “Tell me more about that.”
     This is a great default when you don’t know what else to say.
  • “I’ve got no grid for what you’re going through. It must be really hard.”
     This is very validating; it invites them to share their feelings. It assures them you care and you’re listening.
  • “You’re really brave to face this.”
     This can be so validating. Believe me, they feel anything but brave right now.
  • “That must really hurt.”
     Again, an invitation to share their feelings, hurts, and fears.
  • “So do you feel like…”
     and take a guess at how they’re feeling. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or not. Just the fact that someone is trying to understand how they feel is huge.
  • “You’re not a bad Christian for going through this.”
     You may see tears with this one. Because believe me, the enemy, and sadly other Christians, have told them they are.
  • “I don’t know what to do.”
     It’s great to admit you don’t have all the answers. This validates them as a person because then they don’t have to feel condemned for not having all the answers either.

Don’t Try to Be the Professional

Don’t try to be their savior; that’s Jesus’ job. Don’t try to lead them through healing if (1) you haven’t received healing yourself, or (2) you don’t know what you’re doing. Especially if they have been through trauma (emotional or physical abuse, abortion, sexual abuse, etc.). Don’t try to be the professional when you aren’t.

Instead, ask if you can help them find the right help. Asking is very important. Never impose a solution by saying things like:

  • “You should read this book.”
  • “Here’s a counselor that deals with these issues.”

Get permission first. Ask first, like this:

  • “Would you like some resources to help with that?”
  • “Would you like me to help you find a counselor (or pastor) who deals with that?”

If they say yes, then you can ask them if they’ve read that book, or give them your counselor or pastoral recommendation. Now you have their permission and you’re not imposing one more thing on them. Now you’re being truly helpful.

If they say no, then just drop it. No matter how much you think your resource will help them, respect their no. They aren’t ready for it yet. Keep it in your back-pocket for another time when they’re ready.

If we do these things, we can make the church a safe place for hurting people. People won’t let us help them until they know they won’t be harmed by doing so. But if we validate their pain, we create a safe place for them to get healing.

Your Turn

How have you been validated (or not) by the church when you were hurting? What did people do that was helpful (or not)? Are you currently hiding because your church isn’t safe for what you’re struggling with? Tell us your story in the comments; let’s get this conversation going. (If your story is sensitive or private, you’re welcome to send us a private email here.) And please share this post if it would bless others.

4 Ways to Live as Royalty

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What does living in freedom look like? We are, sons and daughters of our Father, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We are princes and princesses, destined to be kings and queens ourselves. In fact, we are kings and queens now in our spheres of influence. Do we act like it? Do we speak like it? Do we know, as Christians, the ways of royalty?

We write a lot on this blog about identity and who we really are in Jesus. We write a lot about how to pull down the vicious lies that, even as Christians, keep us bound up away from the amazing, adventurous life God has for us. We write a lot about how to replace those lies with God’s truth. But what does walking in God’s truth, the freedom Jesus died and rose to give us, actually look like on a practical level?

The children of Prince William and Catherine (formerly Kate Middleton) are given a tutor to instruct them in the ways of royalty, protocol, and honor. Protocol is a way of formally dispensing honor, but that’s a subject for another post. (Frankly, our American culture is currently suffering from our own politicians, on both sides of the aisle, being unschooled in the ways of royalty, protocol, and honor. Amen! But I digress.)

Have you ever had someone teach you the ways of royalty? I am learning them. I learned some of them growing up from Christian parents. And I’m learning more as God brings healing to the wounded and unevangelized parts of my heart. I want to share with you 4 practical tips I’ve learned so far to live like the Kingdom Royalty we are.

1) Don’t Call Names

I recently saw a Christian friend on FaceBook that we’ll call “Patrick,” I believe correctly, rebuke a Christian leader for calling the socialist freshman congresswoman from NY, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a liar and other names. One of my other friends, a strong Christian, rebuked Patrick, sarcastically commenting, “…because Jesus never called anybody names.” He was using Jesus calling the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” to justify calling people names when we don’t agree with them. That is not the way of royalty!

Before Jesus blasted the Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Matthew 23, he spent 3 years trying to foster relationship with them. He sent them healed leapers as a testimony to them (Luke 17:14). He paid the temple tax for himself and Peter to not offend them (Matthew 17:27). He healed a man with a crippled hand in the synagogue right in front of them (Mark 3:1-5), and was frustrated by their stubborn hearts. He reached out to them over and over again.

Ecclesiastes 3 says there’s a time and a purpose under heaven for every activity. There is a time to bless and a time to curse. There is a time to blast like Jesus did in Matthew 23, but only after every other attempt at reaching out and building relationship has failed. And even then, often the Holy Spirit’s strategy is to walk away, not casting our pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6).

I’m not saying we sugar-coat our disagreement with unrighteous policies or people. But we can’t win a Kingdom battle using the weapons of the devil. Usually, name calling is a hellish tool, not a heavenly one. Royalty gives the other person honor, not necessarily because they are honorable, but because we are. Royalty behaves and speaks in an honoring way whether the other person does or not.

2) See People Like God Sees Them

If a politician or someone on the other side of the aisle lies, they are not a liar. They are lying. There’s a difference. God did not create them as a liar and does not see them as one. He sees them as the potential he created them for. So should we.

By the same token, God does not tolerate unrighteousness. If someone’s lying, we should call out the statement for the lie it is. Abortion. Sex outside of marriage. Homosexuality. Transgender. Cheating on your taxes. These are all lies the culture accepts that we need to call out unrighteousness as unacceptable, offering the forgiveness of a loving God. We need to teach them that true repentance means a change of lifestyle. Repentance is no longer doing the thing, not just being sorry about the consequences while continuing the lifestyle.

3) Respect Someone’s Right to be Wrong

You’ve heard the joke, “I respect your opinion. You have the right to be totally wrong!” But seriously. Being “right” does not give us the right to steamroll over someone else. It does not give us the right to post hateful memes about them on FaceBook.

I saw a meme, posted by a Christian and shared by a friend who I know is a strong Christian, about Ilhan Omar, the new Muslim congresswoman who’s been so anti-Semitic in the hateful things she’s been saying. When she was sworn into office, she used the Koran instead of the Bible. The caption of the meme was, “If you’re not willing to be sworn into office on the Bible, then get the h*** out of America!” Except the meme had the full profanity, not the asterisks I used. This is not the way of royalty!

When Jesus encountered pagans acting like pagans, he told them the truth in an honoring way. He found a way to compliment them (he complimented the woman at the well, see John 4:18). He honored them by eating at their houses (eating with tax collectors in Matthew 9:10 and Luke 19:5). He rescued them from the religious people who were all about name-calling and blasting them for their sin (see the woman caught in adultery in John 8, and Jesus at the Pharisee Simon’s house in Luke 7).

4) Remember They Are Human Beings Jesus Loves

They’ve just forgotten, or never knew, who they really are. It’s our job to remind them. How? By beating them over the head with the Bible? No! By sharing the same sacrificial love when they don’t deserve it that Jesus gave us when we didn’t deserve it. We still don’t deserve it, by the way. But Jesus can’t stop loving because that’s who he is. It should be who we are, too.

Your Turn

Does this resonate? Have you had someone call you up to a higher standard of behavior by their good behavior toward you when you were being nasty to them? Have you done this for someone else? How’d that go? What transformation did it bring? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share if this post would bless someone else.

5 Steps to Embracing the Intimacy We’re Both Terrified of and Longing for

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Are you ready to go deep today? Because in this post, I’m going to talk about what we all want and desperately need, but we’re all terribly afraid of. Deep down, sometimes way down there, we all want intimacy. But how can we embrace the intimacy we’re simultaneously longing for and terrified of?

Intimacy == Into Me See

 

We all want to know and be known. We were created in God’s image, after all. God is a triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He’s in relationship with and within himself. We were created for relationship, with him and with others. And in relationship we reflect his image much fuller than we do individually (especially in a marriage, but in friendships, too).

We long to live out who we were created to be, but because of our wounding, we’re often terrified of it. We send conflicting messages like “come here, stay away!” Or maybe “come close, not that close!”

Because of our heart-wounds, often very early in life, we make judgements and believe lies about ourselves, about the world, and about God. Judgements and lies like:

  • “Men can’t be trusted.”
  • “People will reject me.”
  • “I’m dirty.”
  • “Emotions are bad.”

Then, in a desperate effort to protect our heart, rather than trust God with our pain, we make inner vows to protect our heart, in our own strength.

  • “I don’t need anyone. I will take of myself.”
  • “I’ll reject people before they reject me.”
  • “I’ll be what anyone else wants me to be so I’m accepted.”
  • “I won’t have emotions.”

Yes, we’re keeping ourselves safe this way. But we’re doing it by chaining ourselves into a dark dungeon of our own making. And living in a dark, dank dungeon brings its own pain, which we live with as the price for safety. Like a boat safely raised in dry dock, we never risk setting sail on the adventure we were created for.

How tragic is that! Fortunately, God has something better for us, and Jesus made a way with his sacrifice on the cross. Here’s 5 steps to escape from this prison we’ve made for ourselves.

1) Talk to your heart. We can discover these inner vows by, when we’re feeling afraid of a relationship, talking to our heart. Maybe the fear is masked by anger or rage or some other bad behavior to keep people away. But at the root, it’s fear, and if we’re honest with ourselves in a quiet moment, we know it. So find a quiet place, and ask yourself, “Heart, why are you afraid?” Then hush up and listen.

Now our mind, wanting to be helpful, will often jump in and answer the question with lots of rational reasons. If we’re getting words, rather than impressions or emotions or pictures or memories, it’s probably our mind and not our heart. You have to tell your mind to hush up, too. You can literally tell yourself, “Mind, thanks for trying to help, but I was talking to Heart. So just be quiet now and let Heart speak for itself.” Then listen. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear your heart.

We’re not used to listening to our heart, so this can take a while sometimes. Maybe even a couple days or weeks. But keep asking your heart. And keep asking the Holy Spirit to help you hear your heart. Some of us have buried our heart pretty deep. And often our heart doesn’t speak in words, so it can take some effort to figure it out.

2) Identify the benefit. Once we know what the lie is that we’ve believed, and what inner vow we took to protect our heart, we need one more piece of information. What benefit did we get from the inner vow? Somehow it’s protecting us from the pain (although causing us worse pain). Again, ask your heart, and ask the Holy Spirit.

3) Get the opposite of the lie. The next step is to ask God what’s the opposite of that lie for us. If we’re familiar with the Bible, he will often pop a scripture into our heads. The Bible is a promise book, after all. Pastors and other spiritually mature mentors can be tremendously helpful with this. The game here is to replace the lie with God’s truth.

Now we have a choice. We can keep believing the lie, falsely believing we’re in control. Or we can surrender control to God and accept his truth. It’s up to us.

4) Forgive the person who hurt us. Nothing keeps us in prison like unforgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending they didn’t do evil to us. It’s coming to the place where they are not the evil they did to us. We know we’ve finished forgiveness (which is a process, not an event) when we can pray blessing over the person and mean it.

5) Replace the lie with the truth through repentance. Finally, repent of that vow and break it. We need to repent of the vow, and renounce the benefit we’re getting from it. Replace the lie we believed with God’s truth. Here’s a sample prayer. Use this as a template and make it your own.

Lord, I forgive _____ for _____. I repent of believing the lie that _____, and I repent and renounce the inner vow I made, _____. I renounce the benefit I got from that inner vow of _____. I’m now trusting you with my heart instead trying to protect it myself.

This is how we start living in freedom and embracing intimacy with God and others around us. But freedom can be scary, because we’re not in control anymore. We’re living by dangerous faith. Yes, it’s dangerous. Living this way will change us. But don’t worry, it’s good. It is so worth it.

What do you think? Does this resonate? Please tell us in the comments and share it on social media. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

How to Improve Any Relationship

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Anything involving humans can always be improved, and relationships are no different. But before we can improve one, we need to understand what makes the quality of a relationship better or worse.

The quality of any relationship is measured by the depth of the connection between the people involved. The best relationships are a safe place to enjoy being connected, being known and knowing another person. Healthy relationships are a treasure that give us the fulfillment of what we were created for – connection with another.

But not all relationships are safe places. Instead of being treasured, some relationships are tolerated. Unhealthy relationships can be scary places where we don’t feel safe, and the goal is not connection but self-preservation.

Maybe a relationship you used to treasure has tarnished into a scary, unsafe place. How do we turn that relationship around and get heading back in the right direction?

Since your relationship involves another person, there’s no guaranteed outcome. You can’t control what the other person does. You can only control what you choose to do. But, if you want to improve the relationship, there is a dialog you can start with the other person.

But first, you need to get clear within yourself about a few things.

The Goal of Self-Preservation Prioritizes Distance, Not Connection

Is this a scary relationship? Is it scary to be too close to the other person? There’s no condemnation in the answer to these questions, just facts.

If the relationship is scary, your goal is one of self-preservation. In that case, you’re protecting your distance from the other person.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. The other person may be abusive, or may have a history of breaking your heart. But you need to think it through, Why is the relationship scary? What has happened, what am I afraid will happen if I don’t protect my distance?

The next question to ask yourself is, What needs to happen for me to feel safe in this relationship? Does the other person need to get counseling? Does an addiction need to be dealt with?

[BTW, if the other person is physically abusive, call law enforcement. No one deserves to live in a physically abusive environment and no one has to. Even if they are not actually physically hurting you, but if they are threatening to, or are breaking things, call law enforcement. Those things count as violence and you do not have to tolerate them. Make the call or nothing will change. There is help available for you.]

Do You Really Want a Closer Connection?

You don’t have to. Sometimes people are in an unhealthy relationship where they keep each other at arm’s length. They’ve gotten very comfortable protecting their mutual distance, and it works for them. It’s a known, “safe” quantity.

But it’s not a stable equilibrium. Like anything toxic, eventually, it will begin to seep into your soul and affect you. The bitterness, callousness, hardness-of-heart grows until they start affecting your other relationships as well. Many people don’t notice until it’s too late.

Connection is worth pursuing, but if you pursue it for that reason alone, it won’t work. Don’t pursue connection because you “should.” Pursue it because you want it.

Restoring a healthy connection can cost a high price. It’s a risk to the existing but toxic relationship, which could completely explode in your face, leaving you with no relationship at all with the other person. This has happened to me in several important relationships, which I trust God to restore at the proper time.

Sometimes, the other person doesn’t want a healthy relationship. They are perfectly fine preserving distance instead of connection. If you start pursuing connection, you overturn their whole applecart. “Hey, I thought we had an arrangement here?” You may be ready for healthy, but they may not be. I have a post on that subject here.

What Are You Prepared to Do?

Maybe the other person is equally sacred of you. Maybe, they will need certain things from you in order to feel safe. Are you willing to pursue connection over your preferences?

Maybe they need you to not watch TV during dinner. Or stop what you’re doing and greet them when they get home. Or talk about your day. Or let them into that place of your secret hopes and dreams. Maybe they want you to go to counseling.

Risking connection with another person can be scary. But it’s so worth it when it’s mutual.

The Choice Is Yours

Some people are toxic enough that the relationship has to be completely rebooted. Sometimes you have to protect distance, sometimes even physical distance with a restraining-order. Sometimes self-preservation is legitimately threatened, either physically or emotionally. In that case, the most loving thing might be to pull the plug on the relationship, for a season at least, until the other person does what they need to do to make the relationship a safe place. Have you had to pull the plug on a relationship?

Or have you risked pursuing connection, rather than distance, and come through the other side? When two people decide they value their connection with each other over their urge to protect themselves, it can be a beautiful thing. Have you experienced such a restoration?

Tell us your story in the comments; it will help inspire others. And please share this post if it will bless others.

Why Everyone, Including Trauma Survivors, Wrongly Blames Trauma Survivors

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We have a nasty habit of blaming trauma survivors for the trauma they endured. In the church, outside the church, it makes no difference. We wrongly blame trauma survivors for the trauma perpetrated upon them through no fault of their own.

Yes, unwise choices can put you in a situation where trauma is more likely to occur. But no one deserves trauma. Ever. I don’t care what unwise choices someone has made.

How many times have you heard one of these?

“Dressing like that, she’s just asking to be raped.” No. A thousand times no. No woman deserves to be raped. Ever. I swear, if I hear one more of my Christian brothers say this, I’m going to perpetrate some trauma myself and knock their teeth out. After all, talking like that, they’re just asking for it.

“She must not have been very attentive at home,” said when blaming a wife for her husband’s affair. I’ve actually most often heard this said by other women. No. No wife ever deserves to be cheated on. I don’t care what the situation is. A man’s adultery is no one’s fault but his own. Ever. Jesus died to make that so.

“They must not have been good parents,” said when blaming the people down the street for their teen’s suicide. No. Never. No parent ever deserves to bury their children, whether through intentional or accidental tragedy.

And saddest of all, childhood trauma survivors blame themselves. “It’s my fault my father sexually abused me. There’s something wrong with me.” No. Never true. Yet this response is universal.

Why Do We Do Blame Trauma Survivors?

Why do we blame trauma survivors? Why do trauma survivors blame themselves?

At a trauma seminar, we recently heard Dr. Gabor Mate, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, give a very logical reason. It’s the safest conclusion.

Which is safer for a victim of childhood trauma to believe?

  • The lie: “There’s something wrong with me. It’s my fault this happened.”
  • The truth: “I am in the care of a monster. There is something seriously wrong with my dad.”

The lie is actually the safer conclusion! “If it’s my fault, then maybe I have some control over it. If I can just be a better daughter, this won’t happen again.”

Believing the truth, “I’m in the care of a monster. I’ve got no control over when this happens again,” makes the world a very scary, unsafe place.

The lie is actually a psychological defense mechanism used by children so they can survive. But once they’re adults and out of that situation, until that lie is replaced by God’s truth, it can cause untold bad fruit in their lives.

Take the woman whose friend’s husband had an affair. Which is safer to believe?

  • The lie: “If she’d just been a better wife, he wouldn’t have cheated on her.”
  • The truth: “His affair was not her fault. He made his own choice.”

Or take the example of parents you know whose teen was lost to suicide. Which is safer to believe?

  • The lie: “They must be bad parents.”
  • The truth: “What a horrible thing to happen to them. No parents deserve to go through that.”

In each case, the lie is a “safer” conclusion to believe. Believing the lie that trauma is the fault of the survivors gives us a feeling of control over our unsafe world.

  • “If I’m a good wife, my husband won’t cheat on me.”
  • “If we’re good parents, our children will be safe.”

The problem is, it’s only a false feeling of control. We really have very little, if any, control over the unsafe, unredeemed world we live in.

Finding True Security

The truth is, in this unsafe world, our safety is out of our control. The only true security we really have is in the goodness of God. Yet even Jesus did not promise us safety; in fact, he promised the opposite:

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – Jesus (John 16:33)

God’s security is not the absence of trauma or tragedy in this life, but Jesus’ promise to be with us through it.

How to Actually Help

As Christians, we should follow Jesus’ example, and be with each other through trauma.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” — Psalm 23:4

When people are going through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, don’t try to find them an off-ramp. It’s natural to want to pull someone out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We mean well. But we can’t pull them out of it. Jesus is calling us to ride with them through it.

Don’t say, “I understand,” even if you’ve been through something similar. That just discounts their feelings. This is not the time to tell your story. This is the time to shut-up and listen. Validate their pain.

We must stop blaming trauma survivors. The world is not a safe place. We need to accept that, yes, it could happen to us too. But God is good, even if it does.

The church of God has to be a safe place. As Jesus’ hands, feet, mouth, and most importantly, heart, to a lost and dying world, we have to get this right. As we learn to be Jesus to the hurting, we teach them to be Jesus to us. After all, no one gets out of this world unscathed. We can do this.

How About You?

Dear Child of God, please tell us your story in the comments, or shoot us an email. You don’t have to be alone. And please share this post if it would bless others.

Resources

If you have experienced trauma (abuse, sexual assault, rape, abortion, or any other trauma), or someone you know has, please seek healing. Here are some Christ-based ministries that might be helpful. If they are not in your area, they may be able to refer you to help that is.

For sexual trauma: Restoration 1:99

For abortion healing: Rachel’s Vineyard

For suicide prevention resources: Cru.org

If you are contemplating suicide, cutting or harming yourself, know the world is better with you in it. We need you.

Please get help by contacting The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Talk to someone right now by chatting online or calling 1-800 273-8255.

The One Question that Reveals Our Heart

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When Jesus encountered a paralytic lying on a mat at the pool of Bethesda in John 5, he asked possibly the stupidest question ever, on the surface at least.

Really, though, this question, more than any other, reveals our heart.

Do you want to get well?

So here’s the deal with this pool. From time to time, an angel would stir up the waters. Then the first one in the pool got healed of whatever disease or ailment they had. The poor paralytic guy was paralyzed, so he couldn’t even roll and fall into the water. He just got to watch as people with lesser problems got healed. Can you relate?

Enter Jesus. The paralytic didn’t know it, but God set up his whole life for this moment. Jesus asks him the One Question. 

Do you want to get well?

I can think of a few humorous responses the paralytic could’ve used:

  • “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
  • “No, Jesus, I’m just lying here getting a suntan. It’s time to do my back. Can you flip me over?”
  • “No, actually, I was hoping you could help me change the oil in my camel.”

All kidding aside, the paralytic tells Jesus the truth of his situation, that he’s got no one to help him get in the water. Then Jesus, breaker of protocols, did what he seems to do best. He broke the rules on a couple different levels all at once and miraculously healed the man on the spot. But he did it in a way that engaged the man’s faith. Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk.”

Now even with my limited knowledge of medical science, “get up” isn’t something you normally say to a paralytic. In the natural, it kind of reflects that Jesus didn’t quite understand the situation here. Or did he?

The paralytic could have responded, “Um, I’m paralyzed here. I can’t.” But instead, he took Jesus at his word (as crazy as it was), and tried. Maybe he felt in his body that he was healed. Maybe he wasn’t healed until he tried. But the point is, he accepted Jesus’ healing, did the impossible, and walked into a whole new life. Will you?

Do you want to get well?

Jesus could’ve said, “Ok, I’ll help you get in the pool first the next time the water’s stirred.” He had twelve disciples. Jesus could have had them block everybody else while he was getting the paralytic in the water. But he broke the local protocol.

He also broke the national protocol by having the guy carry his mat on the Sabbath, getting himself in trouble with the Jewish authorities. Again. What does a healed guy need with a mat anyway? Why didn’t Jesus have him leave it at the pool for some other sick guy? What was with that whole “pick up your mat” thing anyway? It’s almost like Jesus went out of his way to shatter people’s rules and expectations.

Do you want to get well?

I know a pastor who had someone ask for prayer after church. They had a disability hearing coming up that week. The person wanted to pray for a favorable outcome, so they would continue receiving their disability payments. This was important — it was their livelihood. The pastor asked them, “How about if we pray for healing? Then you won’t need the disability hearing.”

The person didn’t want healing. They wouldn’t let him pray for that. That would disrupt their entire life, which was built around protecting their entitlement. The person had a legitimate disability, and it’s good that our society provides a safety net. I’m not knocking disability payments or making any political point here. 

But if God broke the protocol and healed this person, it would change their life. Their livelihood would have to change. They’d have to get a job. That’s scary when you’ve lost your skills and your confidence over years of disability. 

The paralytic’s livelihood had to change. He could no longer beg, and maybe that’s all he knew. What was he supposed to do now? Thanks a lot, Jesus. Are we so comfortable with our wounding that we turn down Jesus’ healing?

Or do we believe in God’s goodness more than the safety of our wounding and victimhood? He’s got something better than begging, entitlements, and woundedness for us. Is God allowed to shatter our protocols and our expectations? Who does our heart really trust for our provision?

Do you want to get well?

John Sandford founded Elijah House as a ministry mostly for pastors caught in repetitive, often sexual, sin. Some pastors experienced tremendous freedom, never looked back, and their ministries took off. Other pastors appeared to get free, but kept falling back into the same sin-cycle over and over again.

John asked the Lord what made the difference. The Lord showed John some people wanted healing and freedom because they understood their pain, wounding, and sin interfered with serving Jesus to the fullest. These were the people who got free and stayed free — those who wanted freedom so they could serve the Lord the best they possibly could. 

But others recognized their pain only as an obstacle to living the good life. Those who only wanted freedom so they could live the good life were the ones who kept falling back into habitual sins. They were the ones who never got healed of their wounding.

Do you want to get well?

We see it all the time in the volunteer work we do at our local crisis pregnancy center in post-abortive ministry. People come to us for help because they want to be free from the pain in their lives. But some aren’t willing to leave the lifestyle that caused the pain. Some people aren’t willing to do the hard work of working through their denial, anger, unforgiveness, and right to victimhood. So they stay stuck living their lives as emotional, spiritual, and moral paralytics, looking for someone to blame for not helping them into the water.

But we’ve seen other people, sometimes with much greater wounding, do the hard work. They’ve confronted the anger, forgiving those who don’t deserve it and so released themselves from prison. They’ve worked through the denial, repenting and receiving God’s forgiveness, sometimes for the first time in their lives. They experience God’s restoration and true freedom. They never look back.

Are we willing to die to ourselves, laying down our right to be a victim? Are we willing to “pick up our mat” of scary freedom, trusting someone else, God, with our future, maybe even our livelihood? Or do we need to be in control?

Do you want to get well?

That’s the question Jesus has for all of us. Prison is a known quantity, with lots of comfortable certainty and predictability. But there’s a downside. It’s prison. 

Are you willing to let Jesus heal you? Are you willing to die to yourself and let go of the upsides of prison? Are you ready for scary, but exhilarating, freedom? Are you ready to live, instead of just existing? Do you want to get well?

Does this resonate? Please share this post if it would bless others. And tell us your story in comments. We’d love to hear from you.

How to Address the Biggest Problem You Don’t Know You Have

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Often the biggest problems in our lives aren’t the ones we know about. They aren’t the problems we’re dealing with. In fact, often what we think are the problems in our lives are really just symptoms. So often the real problem is something we’ve become so comfortable with that we think it’s normal.

Janet and I have a dear friend who had a laser eye procedure this week. She told us the doctor used a laser to burn away the membrane behind her eye that was causing her cloudy vision. Kudos to technology!

When I asked her if the procedure was successful, she sent me this email:

Very successful! I had no idea how much I was missing when I looked at things. My vision is so clear that on the way home I told my son if he would stop the car I could count the leaves on a tree. Colors are so bright. I was like a kid in a toy store telling my son all the things I was seeing as he drove home. All glory to God! Thank You Jesus!

That got me thinking. She had grown accustomed to cloudy vision. Yes, she knew her vision needed some help, but it wasn’t until after being healed that she realized how bad her vision had gotten, how much she’d been missing.

Are we like that? Have we become so comfortable with our wounding that we take the dysfunction it produces for granted? Yeah, we know we need some help in some areas, but it’s not that bad. We’ll get around to it. Some day.

Often, it has to do with how we were raised, stuff that’s been in our fundamental assumptions about the world for a long time. In inner healing lingo, we call these foundational lies. They are things we’ve believed are true for so long that now we don’t even realize we’re making that assumption. We take the lie for granted, and, like looking through a filter, it distorts how we see the rest of the world.

For a long time, I believed I was a mistake. My two brothers are ten and eleven years older than me. Before I could talk, I probably heard well-meaning, good people, talk to my parents about their “little accident.”

I believed my preferences weren’t important. I had a great dad, and growing up, he’d often play games with me if he wasn’t busy. But if he was doing work on his adding machine and I wanted some of his time, I’d ask him to play cribbage. He loved cribbage and couldn’t resist a game. He’d stop whatever he was doing, however important, and play cribbage with me. But he’d never interrupt his work for some other game that I wanted to play.

I adopted another foundational lie in high school. As a freshman, I lettered JV on the tennis team. I wasn’t that good, but I was persistent. With six singles and two doubles on each varsity and JV team, that’s 20 players total. I was #22 on the roster. On any given match day, there was a high probability two of those 20 teens would be absent. Then everyone moves up on the roster, and I’d get to play on the bottom JV doubles team. I played enough matches to letter.

After coming home from the awards banquet, I was giddy. I was never that athletic and had never had an honor like that before. I was so euphorically happy, it was like I was drunk. I was being crazy silly and laughing at my own jokes hysterically. My parents put up with it for a while, but then said, “That’s enough!” I calmed down immediately. Enter another foundational lie: “It’s wrong to be too happy.”

Now I grew up knowing I was loved. None of the lies I believed were my parent’s fault, per se. I jumped to wrong conclusions about myself and the world all on my own. But these lies, “I’m a mistake,” reinforced by “My preferences aren’t important,” and then “You don’t want to be too happy” set me up for a first marriage that was a disaster. My picker was off.

I didn’t realize I believed these lies. I certainly couldn’t articulate them. I didn’t know why I believed them. The Lord has just recently shown me these incidents in my past that tempted me to believe these lies.

Now I’ve gotten healing, and my second marriage to Janet is wonderful. It’s only having received healing that I see how wrong I was and the devastating impact these lies had on me.

So what can we do? How can we fight lies we don’t know we’re believing? Do these 3 things.

1) Ask the Holy Spirit. Regularly.

Make it a regular practice, during your daily time with the Lord, to ask him what you’ve gotten used to. Ask him to show you your blind spots. This is what David was asking God in Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and experience my heart. Test me and experience my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. –Psalm 139:

2) Investigate Your Bad Behaviors. Connect the Dots.

If you’ve got behaviors in your life that you know are dysfunctional that you can’t seem to find your way out of, that’s a clue that somewhere, in the fiber of your being, you’re believing a foundational lie.

For example, addictions are usually never the problem. They’re a symptom. What pain are you medicating? If you don’t know, think back in your life. When did the addiction start? What happened in your life about then?

We’re constantly amazed by how many people we see at our crisis pregnancy center that don’t connect the dots between their depression and their abortion. Now relax, I’m not saying all depression is a result of abortion. It’s obviously not. But it is an extremely common result of abortion, as are addictions, relationship issues, and a host of other dysfunctions. But because the abortion was something they “chose” (although most women are actually coerced), and society lies that this was something that was good for them, they don’t connect the dots.

We see it with post-abortive men too. If your self-medicating started after a particular breakup, you could have fathered an aborted child and not even known it. But your spirit knows. Many men are left with an overwhelming sense of failure where their self-confidence used to be, and they don’t know where it came from. They don’t connect the dots.

3) Ask Your Heart.

I’ve a longer post on this subject here. Talking to your heart is a skill you can learn.

Ask your heart questions: “Heart, why are you afraid?” “Heart, why did it hurt when that person said that seemingly innocent thing?” Then shut your brain up, be still, and listen to your heart. Often, your heart answers with memories or pictures rather than words.

Once we know what the lies are, we can replace them with God’s truth. Ask the Holy Spirit what’s the opposite of that lie for you, and tape it to your bathroom mirror, computer, steering wheel, or someplace you’ll see it every day. Over time, we can choose to believe the truth God says about us instead of the lies the world (and ourselves) say about us.

How about you?

What foundational lies have you believed? How did you discover them? What truth did you replace them with? We’d love to hear your story. And please share this post on social media if it would bless someone else.

3 Steps to Stop Sabotaging My Life

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How do we keep from sabotaging ourselves? I’m old friends with self-sabotage. We go way back.

When I was 8 or 10 or so, my friends and I rode bikes (bicycles, not motorcycles). Constantly. All the time. On road and off-road. Especially in the fields and canyons around our housing track in Southern California, in a suburb called Canyon Country north of Los Angeles.

I was not a strong kid, and I had a heavy Schwinn bike. My friends had more expensive, lighter bikes. I couldn’t pull up on the handle bars going over jumps like they could. My front tire would always land first, and over the handle bars I would flip. But I was smart. I learned quickly after a couple crashes not to go over jumps. I learned quickly (and falsely!) that I couldn’t do what the other kids did.

One day my two best friends and I were riding around through the fields. The trail went down sharply into a small canyon (75’ deep or so). The trick was to go down as fast as possible so you’d have enough momentum to make it up the other side. The path down was steep, narrow, and rocky. I did not like the looks of it.

My friends encouraged me. These were good, solid, Christian friends. There was no peer pressure; just true, healthy, “you can do it” encouragement. My friends went first. First Marc effortlessly made it down and up, and then Bruce did the same. Then it was my turn.

I didn’t know you were supposed to stand up on your pedals over bumpy terrain. I had a really bumpy ride going down. Although it was probably less than 15 seconds, it seemed like slow-motion terror to me. This was not fun at all; I was filled with fear. My bike was out of control!

I knew I was going to crash. Since crashing was inevitable, the best I could do was decide where I was going to crash. On rocks, or in a bush? I decided crashing into a bush would be safer. So I picked a big, 3-foot high bush and steered into it. What I didn’t know, until it was too late, was that particular bush hid a 2-foot diameter boulder, a much bigger rock than any other rock on the trail. My front wheel stopped abruptly. I did not. Over the handle bars I flew. Again.

After my friends helped me get back to my house and get the road rashes bandaged up, they asked me, “Why did you crash into the bush?”

“Because I was going to crash anyway.” Duh.

“No you weren’t, you almost made it!” 15 more feet and I’d have done something I never thought I could, but I blew the opportunity because I sabotaged myself.

I was actually succeeding in spite of myself, in spite of not knowing the basics, like standing up on the pedals. But I made myself fail, to be true to be script playing over and over in my head: “I can’t…, I’m not…, I’ll never…”

Do you do this? Is there a script playing inside your head: “I can’t…, I’m not…, I’ll never…” Sound familiar?

That whole thing’s a lie. From. The. Pit. Designed to hold you down, to keep you from reaching your potential, the identity God created you for.

  • “I can’t be both successful and happy.”
  • “I’m not lovable. No one will ever love me.” (My personal favorite hogwash.)
  • “I’ll never reach that dream.”

None of that rubbish is true. Yet because we believe it is, it has power over us and we live it out. Because we’ve heard it in our head our whole life, we don’t even notice it anymore and we think it’s normal. So we sabotage our relationships, our success, and our dreams. We pick the safest bush to crash into, discovering too late that lying bush hides the very rock we’re trying to avoid.

So here’s 3 ways to escape self-sabotage:

1) Identify your limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are the chains we use to hold ourselves down.

Someone in my writer’s group recently asked the group a question: “A friend wants to pay me to edit his book. But I’m not an editor, what should I charge?” Do you see her limiting belief? “I’m not an editor.” Even though she’s written a couple books, and part of her day-job is editing sales-copy! If someone wants to pay you to edit, you’re an editor!

The worst limiting belief we all have to some degree is our Upper Limit Problem (kudos to Gay Hendricks for coining this term in his book The Big Leap (not an affiliate link). Our Upper Limit Problem is the false belief that we can’t be simultaneously successful in love, finances, and creativity. If one area, or especially two, start to go outrageously well, we sabotage the other area(s) to bring ourselves back down to where we (falsely!) think we belong.

The good news is, we can shed our Upper Limit Problem. The first step is identifying those limiting beliefs.

2) Start telling yourself a different story. Out loud. In Public.

My former mentor, Jeff Goins, has a short, little powerful book called You Are A Writer: So Start Acting Like One (not an affiliate link). His point is, you’re a writer (or whatever) when you start calling yourself one. Silence the limiting beliefs “I can’t…, I’m not…, I’ll never…” by telling yourself a different script.

Ok, you sold me, but what script should I tell myself? Do I just make one up? No, get Heaven’s script for you. Because it’s not a script. It’s a calling.

So how do I find my calling? It’s that thing you’re passionate about. What makes your heart leap? Who do you think put that there? That’s heaven’s calling God planted in your heart.

The enemy’s plan is to get us so weighed down with the day-to-day, going-nowhere, hamster-wheel, slog-of-life that we forget what it feels like to be passionate about something. The kingdom of darkness can’t risk many of us actually living out God’s calling on our lives. The most effective way to squelch that calling is to break our heart, where the calling lives.

That’s why sexual purity is so important in our culture. The lure of pleasure and relationship without cost, restraint, or commitment trick us into giving our heart away, one broken relationship at a time. Pretty soon we have no heart left, and no calling. We forget who we are, let alone what we’re passionate about.

God wants to restore your passion. What feeds your soul? Get away and go do that thing, get some soul time. Ask God to remind you what you’ve forgotten. What used to make your heart sing? Then start telling yourself that story.

So often the Holy Spirit’s job is dealing with our limiting beliefs that war against our calling. Look at Moses’ calling in Exodus 3 and 4. Moses had a whole slew of limiting beliefs:

  • “I’m a nobody.” (Exodus 3:11)
  • “I can’t take a mission from God. I don’t even know God’s name.” (Exodus 3:13)
  • “I’m just some random guy wandering in from the desert. The Israelites won’t believe me.” (Exodus 4:1)
  • “I can’t talk to Pharaoh. I stutter.” (Exodus 3:10)

The thing is, they were all true! And Heaven totally doesn’t care. God’s calling wins over earth’s limitations every time. Unless…

Unless we actually say, “No, I’m not doing that.” God was fine with all of Moses’ excuses until Moses actually said “please send someone else” in Exodus 4:13. Verse 14 says God’s anger burned against Moses. But even then, God made a deal with him to send his brother, Aaron, with him to do the talking.

So start telling people you’re a writer/musician/artist/chef/entrepenuer/whatever/fill-in-the-blank-for-you. What are you passionate about? What makes your heart leap?

3) Take the first step in that direction. Really.

Don’t overthink it. Just take that first step. Any first step. Yes, I know it’s easy to say, but hard to do. As an engineer, I have a PhD in over-thinking things. The truth is, that’s just my fear protecting me from my calling. “Gee thanks, Fear, but with friends like you, who needs enemies.” Exactly. Over-thinking is not your friend.

Play this game. Ask yourself, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid? If I really was that thing, what would I do?” Then do that.

Do a little acting. You’re Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. You’ve been given a star role. Start playing it. This isn’t “fake it till you make it,” but “believe it till you become it.” (Thank you Jeff Goins!)

So how about you? What have you forgotten makes your heart sing? God hasn’t forgotten. He’s dying (literally, Jesus did that) to redeem and awaken your forgotten passion, so you can live the adventure he created you for. What is it? Tell us in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.

MLK’s 6 Keys of Nonviolence the Church Needs to Learn

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., changed the world. Pure and simple. MLK is an American hero on par with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

In his 1958 book Stride for Freedom, MLK outlines 6 key principles of nonviolence. These are all Christian principles found in scripture. This post is based on a summary of this work published online here by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute of Stanford University online encyclopedia.

The Church needs to relearn these 6 key strategies and practice them, whether we’re debating on FaceBook or protesting injustice at a rally. We can’t defeat the world by fighting with the world’s weapons.

1) Resist Evil without Resorting to It

Fighting fire with fire just makes a big fire. The Apostle Paul understood this.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” — Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 10:4

So often, even in the Old Testament in actual warfare, God had a strategy for his people that made no sense.

  • “Joshua, march around Jericho blowing trumpets.” (Joshua 5:13-6:27)
  • “You have too many men, Gideon. Lose 99% of them. Of your 32,000 men, only fight with 300 of them.” (Judges 7:1-8)
  • “Don’t fight at all, Jehoshaphat, just go pick up the plunder.” (2 Chronicles 20:1-25)

So while conventional wisdom often offers good strategies, the Holy Spirit always has the best strategies.

For example, in the pro-life movement, actually killing abortion doctors is wrong. Although some misguided individuals have done that, you can’t defeat legalized murder in our society by committing murder yourself.

The Holy Spirit had a much better strategy with life tape. Pro-life protestors would simply stand with red tape over their mouths with the word “LIFE” written on it, silently praying, symbolically standing for the lives of those who could not speak up for themselves.

2) Understand, Not Humiliate, Your Opponent

While our opponent is talking, if we take the time to actually listen, instead of just waiting to talk, we often get the key to turn opponents into allies. Solomon understood this. We state our case; we think we’re right. But then the other person speaks. There’s another side.

“In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross-examines.” – Solomon, Proverbs 18:17

So often when we face unrighteous opposition, it comes from people motivated by fear. Listening to them to understand their fear goes a long way.

We can then acknowledge their, often, legitimate fear. At that point, we’re no longer an enemy in their eyes. We understand! Now we can show them another way to mitigate that fear. Having taken the time to understand, we have their ear.

Think of it this way. Before you can take someone to your bus stop, you have to go pick them up at theirs.

3) Evil Is the Problem, Not the People Committing It

Again, Dr. King brilliantly understood something straight from scripture.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” – Apostle Paul, Ephesians 6:12

The godless world believes that we, as the people of God, are the enemy. But we know that people trapped in godless deceptions are not the enemy. The demonic forces of evil in the heavenly realms are the enemy.

Therefore, we can truly love our enemies, because we know those people are not our real enemy, although they are deceived and being used by the enemy. They are prisoners-of-war, and our charter is to set them free, not conquer them.

4) Suffer without Retaliation

Dr. King exemplified this principle. He was willing to go to jail, and did, but did not retaliate. He didn’t lead a mob to burn down the jail or the police station that unrighteously arrested him.

He stood his ground and took the consequences, unrighteous as they were. Such action moved heaven on his behalf.

“I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” – Jesus, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:39-41

That’s crazy talk! But it works.

I had a friend who, in high school, got beat up by a bully. Afterward, driving away from the school in his air-conditioned car on a hot day in California, he saw the bully walking home, sweating and carrying a ton of books. He slowed, rolled down his window, and asked if the bully wanted a ride.

The bully at first thought my friend was mocking him, but was blown away when he realized my friend was serious. He gladly accepted the ride, asking my friend, “Why are you doing this?!?”

“You looked like you needed a ride,” my friend answered. They were close friends from that day forward.

5) Avoid Both External and Internal Violence

Dr King understood that external violence starts with internal hatred.

“The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuses to hate him.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Stride for Freedom

This is a Biblical principle. Jesus said, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). All actions and words, good or bad, start in the heart. To put it another way, our actions and words are the fruit, but the root causing the fruit, good or bad, is in our hearts.

Yes, bad behavior needs to be addressed. But to get to the real issue, we need to go past that to the heart. As the people of God, we should be the experts at this. I pray that we continue to grow into that place.

6) Hope

I love this one. Dr King expressed it by writing in his book Stride for Freedom that we must have a “deep faith in the future” because “the universe is on the side of justice”.

Despair is the devil‘s playground.

As the people of God, we have the hope the world desperately needs, even though they don’t realize it. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).

As the people of God, if we forget our hope and give ourselves over to despair, we will do and say things that are counter-productive, playing right into the enemy’s hand.

The hope we have in Jesus is far stronger than the fear our enemy propagates. And, at the end of the day, it’s hope that gives us pause. It reminds us to stop and ask the Holy Spirit for his strategy. And it gives us the patience, fortitude, and wisdom to carry out those divine strategies, no matter how bleak or hopeless it looks in the natural.

Our hope in Jesus is our unshakable, unstoppable, and undefeatable secret weapon.

Your Turn

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