All of us have wounding. We live in a fallen world with a powerful spiritual enemy who wants to destroy us, or at least keep us from living the adventure God created us for. Our enemy does this by wounding us. The good news is, Jesus heals wounding.

But how? How do we go about getting our wounding healed? It doesn’t happen on its own. Here are 4 ways we can pursue our healing with both hands. Most of us need some unique combination of these. Everyone’s healing path is different; there is no universal formula or timetable. Ask the Holy Spirit what’s right for you.

1) Counseling

Professional counselors are brilliant at providing the tools for living we should’ve learned growing up but didn’t. Honestly, all of us can use a healthy dose of good counseling.

Don’t be afraid to try different counselors before you find the one that works for you. This process can take a year or two or more, but keep at it. The right counselor is out there. It could be a professional counselor, a pastor, or a life coach, or a combination thereof.

There’s wisdom in using more than one professional at the same time. Often, they deal with different areas. For example, professional counselors typically can deal with different things than pastors, and pastors will deal with things counselors often won’t touch.

For example, we’ve had people say they got more healing in a 10-week abortion healing Bible study then they got in 25 years of counseling. That doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with their counseling; it just means it wasn’t dealing with the critical issue.

BTW, if you have had sexual abuse, an abortion, or other types of trauma, you need healing from people who deal with that specific thing.

Pro Tip: If there’s anything in your life where you say, “I’ll talk about anything but this,” that’s probably the thing you need to get specific healing for. It could be your relationship with a parent, an abortion, sexual abuse, or another form of trauma. But if there’s pain you don’t want to go to, going to that pain is probably where your healing lies.

You can find wise and well-trained practitioners in our free 1-page resource list at the bottom of this post.

2) Deliverance

Deliverance is the process of removing demonic influences (or, in some cases, control) from your life. Now don’t flip out. This is not what you see in Hollywood or anything creepy or scary. For a Christian, this is just a spiritual reality.

While Christians cannot be overtly possessed, we can certainly be oppressed, and we often are. All of us need some degree of deliverance.

“You cannot counsel a demon. You have to drive that sucker out with power and authority.” –John Fichtner

Demons have power in our lives when we believe their lies. So even as Christians, we can give demons a foothold in our lives. If the foothold stays there long enough, it gets reinforced as a structure. If the structure stays there long enough, it gets built into a stronghold.

A stronghold has a strong hold on us, because it’s built on a foundation of lies we take for granted as truth.

Deliverance is the process of tearing down those lies, forgiving whoever tempted us to believe them (often by sin against us), repenting of believing them, and replacing them with God’s truth. Once the lie is repented of and no longer believed, the demons attached to it have no more legal right to be in your life and can be commanded out.

In the early days of the church learning about deliverance, there was a lot of rolling around on the floor, snotting and vomiting, shouting, and other crazy stuff. Demons love to make a show and embarrass the person. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not at all.

Deliverance is one of those things where a little bit of knowledge can do a whole lot of damage. There are a lot of poor practitioners out there who really don’t know what they’re doing.

If you’ve had a negative experience with deliverance, don’t give up. A trained practitioner who knows what they’re doing won’t let the demons put on a show. In fact, they take authority right from the beginning to make a safe space to explore with you the truth God wants to bring.

You can find wise and well-trained practitioners in our free 1-page resource list at the bottom of this post.

3) Inner Healing

When we are wounded, we often respond in a sinful way. While the original sin or trauma against us is not in any way our fault, our sinful response to it is. We often make inner vows to protect ourselves, rejecting God as our protector.

• “I’ll never let anyone close to me again. I’ll reject them before they reject me.”
• “I’ll never be angry like my dad (or mom).”
• “I’ll never rely on anyone. I’ll take care of myself.”

Those inner vows lead to bitter root expectations of how we will be treated. If we expect abandonment, we gravitate to relationships with people likely to abandon us. If we feel unworthy of love, we gravitate to relationships with abusive people who don’t treat us lovingly.

Inner healing is the process of identifying those inner vows, repenting of making them, renouncing them, and replacing them with God’s truth. You can read about the principles of inner healing in Dave’s FREE fun and engaging story here, The Runt: A Fable of Giant Inner Healing. In fact, periodically we do a 12-week zoom group going through the ebook. That link takes you to the waiting list page, but you can also download the ebook from there.

Inner healing is similar to deliverance in that a little knowledge can do a lot of damage. There are a lot of poor practitioners out there. You can find good ones in our resource list at the bottom of this post.

4) Medication

There’s nothing unspiritual about medication. Some people need medication first to level them out enough to receive inner healing, deliverance, or counseling. Other people need some deliverance or inner healing first before the medication can work, and then some good counseling. There’s no universal formula.

Your healing journey will be unique to you. Don’t let shame, or the unfortunate ignorance of other Christians, keep you from getting medication if you need it. Talk to your doctor. Talk to your pastor. Sign releases and ask them to talk to each other. Get everyone on your team on the same page.

What They All Have in Common

What do all things have in common? Two main things.

(1) Someone else is helping you. You can’t do it alone. Remember, shame is the major tool of our enemy to keep you living in wounding. Shame gets its power from secrecy and isolation. So in just reaching out for help, you’ve broken 90% of shame’s power right there. That’s why initially asking for help in the first place can be the hardest part.

(2) Going into the pain. In each case, you’re going to where the pain is. This is why so many people medicate their pain instead of getting healing for it. Getting healing hurts! Healing lies on the other side of the pain, and you have to go through the pain to get there. But you can get there.

So How about It?

Are you willing to go through a painful season of healing in your life, in order to live the adventure God created you for? An adventure beyond your wildest dreams? We would love to walk that journey with you. Reach out to us with an email.

Also, if you’re looking for healing, you can download our free 1-page resource list here. We have either personally benefitted from or personally know each of these ministries and we vouch for them. They know what they’re doing. (We do not have any affiliate relationship with any of these ministries.)

Have you been through healing and come out the other side? Leave a comment; your story will help others.

And please share this post to bless more people.