Paths to Dwell In

Prayer ministry, when used properly, is the most incredible tool I know of for people to find freedom.

So what exactly is Prayer Ministry? Quite simply, it is prayer. It is honestly looking at and facing the pain in our life, then asking God to speak to it. We, as prayer ministers, do not seek to give advice, diagnose, provide insight, or give direction.

So often, Christian counselors inadvertently move people toward victim thinking in seeking to solve their problems for them, or even get a word of the Lord for them. Of course, people are happy for you to solve their problems for them if you let them, but this brings little lasting fruit and may lead to ego on the part of the minister. Any form of ministry that places me, the minister, as a person’s “source” is moving toward dangerous ground. People are really quite capable of hearing from the Lord themselves with a little support.

Prayer ministry should encourage people to discovery. A prayer minister should not take on the responsibility at any level to resolve a person’s problems, issues or pain in life, but should encourage people to own their own emotional pain, take responsibility for their own thinking, not blame other people or circumstances for their emotional reactions and move forward toward God’s resolution.

When people are willing to take ownership, I see them get free every time. When a person chooses to face their pain, God always shows up.

1 Tim 4:2-speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.

The subject of conscience and empathy is quite fascinating. On the far bad end of the scale you have the sociopath, who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. Their chief characteristic is a lack of empathy because they cannot feel another’s pain. From this far end is a broad middle, where most of us have a conscience functioning at some level. What is fascinating is the role our conscience can play in keeping us from sin and moving us toward intimacy with the Lord when functioning well at the good end. John Sanford describes this well:

“There are two kinds of conscience. There is an active conscience which causes remorse after the sin. It operates by the law. It seldom if ever works powerfully enough before the event to prevent it. It reminds us that we have failed the Lord and ourselves, but seldom if ever makes us aware of our brother’s hurt. It makes us aware only that we failed to be what we set out to be. It seldom moves us to real repentance. Repentance happens when we are hurt for the sake of the Lord and others. Remorse remains self-centered and is seen in terms of our own failure to perform.”

Then there is a healthy conscience that leads to real repentance which “is a result of the gift of love. If I love someone, and my spirit is awake and alert, it checks me before I do a potentially harmful deed. Love constrains me because I cannot stand to hurt the one I love.” (P.122, Healing the Wounded Spirit, Sanford)

It has become ever clearer to me that there is a reason for everything. Every fear I battle, that shameful or hurtful event that plays repeatedly in my mind or I avoid like the plague, the compulsive behaviors I struggle with, even of anger I cannot seem to let go. There is a root somewhere; something I have not forgiven, some lie I have believed contrary to God’s word. Many times as I begin a ministry session with someone, I hear statements like:

“I don’t think about negative things, I confess good things.” “I’m a new creature in Christ Jesus, old things are passed away.”

Is this walking in victory - no matter how many times the negative thoughts come I am able to cast them down? Is it a matter of building my willpower to the point of never resorting to depression or anger or giving in to ice cream?

How can I know if I have overcome in a particular area? What is the fruit of true healing?

There is a concept of maintenance free victory, a victory wherein we do not have to use constant willpower. This is a place of not having to rebuke the devil constantly, nor of casting down thoughts and imaginations continuously. We are free. If a negative thought does arise we can easily cast it aside and that is the end of it, there is no continual battle. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes this well:

“And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky, nor are we afraid. That is our experience.” p.84

What many people call healing is actually denial.

We hide from our strongholds with defense mechanisms, fearing to give up the only control we know to try to feel safe and get our needs met.

The huge trap of the enemy is to either keep us in denial or get us to face things in our own strength, which leads to failure, frustration, and giving up. The secret to freedom is to discover the lie that hinders us from trusting God. Then it is easy – we will not need denial anymore. We can have victory without white knuckle Christianity!

Joey lived in my neighborhood and we rode the school bus together each day. He was not a particularly shy kid yet he was continually picked on. One day, as we got off the bus several kids were spitting on him and laughing. I could not be that mean and actually felt sorry for him, but I did not want to get involved. So I said and did nothing.

I never forgot that event. How must it feel to be picked on like that throughout your childhood? I can only imagine the feelings of shame and rejection Joey felt. Even the boys who committed the cruelty had to have experienced some shame and hardness of heart. These things do not typically just go away. They can create pockets of un-forgiveness that we are only slightly aware of many years later and yet they affect us. Events like this can also move us to embrace lies like we are inadequate or helpless.

Many of us have received treatment like this, have given it, or at least witnessed it. I ministered to one man whose mother had left and was being raised by his father. One time he overheard his dad on the phone say, “I hope one day I’ll have a son, because this one I have is good for nothing.”

Sometimes when we think of past events like this we have that slight cringing feeling or a tight fist in our chest. That might indicate it is unresolved. God can bring us to the place where we can think about any past event with total peace, compassion for the ones who were hurtful and even a sense of God’s presence in place of the cringing because He has brought healing. Here are some steps to consider.

Three requirements for healing:

1)   You must hurt enough that you have no choice but to change.

2)   You must learn enough that you have hope for change.

3)   You must receive enough unconditional love that you are motivated towards change.

“No one respects me; people are always trying to take advantage of me.” This person battled negative thinking and bouts of depression. The immediate answer was obvious: “hold your boundaries with people”. Yet, if it were that easy, she would not have been coming for ministry. She was reaping from seeds of judgment she had sown; there was legal ground for the enemy to operate that kept things in a flux. Think of a computer that gets too many programs constantly running in the background, and a few viruses. It starts to run slow and crashes often. There are internal conflicts.

When the Bible talks about the consequences of not forgiving, it is real, a principle as real as that of gravity. We cannot have peace, joy, or rest when we are walking around with unresolved issues, violating the law of judgment. This lady struggled with depression. Depression always involves negative thinking; it has to do with too many internal conflicts. Having depression or being Bi-Polar certainly can include a chemical imbalance, but to make medication the only answer is woefully inadequate. Negative thinking comes from judgments we have made and lies we have believed about our self worth.

The woman I was ministering to had a lot of conflict in relation to her mother and even wished when she was younger her parents would have divorced. Her mother was controlling and often crossed her boundaries. The principle of fruit and root says that there is a reason for everything. Once we discovered why she was holding on to the anger, she was able to let it go. Suddenly God’s love flooded her heart with compassion and she started saying, “I love you Mom! I love you Mom!”  By doing the legal work, she suddenly had an understanding of the brokenness her mom had been living with. Not only did she feel compassion, joy, and peace, the negative thoughts and feelings of depression left as well.

Feelings of depression do not always clear up this easily; sometimes it takes a number of sessions to clean up all the “viruses” that may be slowing us down. However, when we are faithful to do the legal work, we always find freedom.

There is a lot of fear in the world today. What will happen to the economy? What will our futures look like? There is one thing we can focus on that will cause us to rise above all our fears. That is the kingdom of God.

2 Timothy 2:3, 4 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

1 Corinthians 3:14, 15 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

The US is perhaps one of the more difficult places in the world to be a Christian. When times are good it is difficult not to focus on the good life, the American dream. There is so much pressure from media, peers, and even some preaching, to save for a good retirement, to take nice vacations, to live in nice homes and drive nice cars. We want the best for our kids and try to get them on the right sports teams and into the right colleges. All these things are not necessarily bad as long as they do not replace the main thing.

If I lay up treasure in heaven, no one can take that away from me. If I seek to grow in spiritual authority, the government can take my house, even throw me in jail—yet I can lead the guy in the next cell to the Lord. Perhaps some of the fear we are experiencing in this time of economic crisis is rooted in too much focus on the temporal and not enough on the eternal.

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

God has called all of us to walk in authority and dominion. The trap of the enemy is to get us focused on other people rather on the destiny God has for us. “Judy grew up in a household with a father who got drunk every weekend, and her whole family had been organized around trying to keep father on an even keel.” (Facing Shame) This really tends toward victim thinking and the idea that our destinies are tied up into the response of others.

I also grew up in an alcoholic home. We all felt we had to walk around on eggshells. What I did not see for a long time is that tiptoeing around is a form of control; it’s trying to control another person’s mood. The alcoholic is sometimes of the pathetic variety, but more often than not, he is abusive. He controls through fear, threat, and intimidation. When you grow up in an environment of fear, trying to keep an abuser happy, it is hard to be free of the idea that the world is a scary place and if you are not careful, someone will get mad at you.

Anybody I feel I have to be careful around is a person seeking to push me into a shame pattern. If we embrace walking on tiptoes, we have abdicated our authority and entered a cycle of shame-them trying to control us, and us trying to control them.  The person that tries to control others through moodiness or sharp comments or anger needs boundaries not appeasement. It is hard to come into the health and destiny God has for us when our focus is on another person instead of on God. I believe this is part of learning how to walk in our authority and walk free from the fear of man.

What keeps us from growth in life? What fuels a fear of failure that keeps us locked into defeat for years and years? There is an old saying, “If you keep doing what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten”. Shame is a major force in keeping us from ever trying anything new, from taking steps that can lead to our healing, maturing, and destinies.

Families that operate according to a shame interaction maintain the system according to a set of rules. One of the rules is perfectionism. My dad wanted me to play football and put me on Pop Warner teams as a kid. I did not like it much because I was not that good of a player. The reason I was not that good was because my dad never practiced with me. There was one time, I remember, we went in the yard to play catch. He told me to go out “longer…, go longer”. He threw the ball so far and hard I had no chance to catch it. Dad then gave me that look, you know the one that says, “What’s the matter with you; every kid knows how to catch a football”.

My dad did not have the ability to meet me where I was at in my skill level and work with me to grow. You either did it right the first time or you were unacceptable. His dad had treated him the same way. These are shame-inducing behaviors. They serve to put people into a cycle of shame. They communicate that it is not okay to make a mistake and people that do are to be mocked or demeaned. It puts a fear of failure into us. It communicates to us that it is not okay to go through a learning process, to fall down, get back up, progress a little further and make another mistake until you master a given thing.

These rules of shame can be difficult to overcome and can keep people locked into patterns where very little growth takes place. I believe this is one key reason why people have trouble progressing in their walks with the Lord. A pattern of shame keeps them rarely learning or trying anything new.

The first step in finding freedom is to begin to recognize these patterns. We do this through studying these concepts and then waiting on the Lord in prayer for Him to show us where they occur in our own lives. (See last week’s SS) Another step might be to go for counseling. Finding our acceptance in Father’s love sets us free in so many ways. His love is the path to both freedom and walking in dominion. If fear were not an issue, what could you accomplish?

“Robert, you have a wrong theology of receiving.” As soon as I heard that, I sensed that there was something to it. It took me some time to unpack that. What errors might there be about my understanding of how I receive what I need in life? I discovered two main ways I needed to adjust my thinking-ways I thought like a victim. One had to do with who my source was and the other had to do with who was in control. Learning how to receive properly from the Father is a huge key to our future!

I have found it a slippery thing to have expectations toward man. I have realized that any time I am angry that someone did not meet my needs, or if I am resentful, feeling like things are unfair, I am looking to man instead of God. Whenever I seek to pressure or manipulate others, I am looking to man. James clearly says, “Every good gift is from above, and comes down from the Father” (Ja.1:17). Every gift, all of them, is from Father. God often uses human means as His conduit to bless us, but He is still our source.

I have been on a lifetime journey of learning to look only to God for my needs and to allow God to determine how He wants to meet them and in what order. At age 21, I felt a call to ministry and had already read about some of the great men of faith: Reese Howells, Smith Wigglesworth, Praying Hyde. I knew that was my path, to be a mighty revivalist. However, ministry did not happen right away for me and, as it did happen, it was nowhere even close to unfolding as I had imagined. I ended up pasturing a church of poor subsistence farmers and their families on the mission field. I felt it was far away from the tangible anointing Reese and Smith seemed to have had, and not even on the level of a respectable American church.

One day I had a thought: “These third-world people are every bit as precious to God as anyone, anywhere, in any church. I would just as soon be here as anywhere.” Something happened that day. I quit trying to tell God what He needed to do for me and acknowledged that He gives me all the things I need for life and godliness (2 Pet.1:3). I also quit trying to determine when He should give me what I need, acknowledging He has the master plan and He alone knows the timing.

I developed an incredible love for those people that continues to this day. Moreover, little did I know, it was preparing me to minister cross-culturally all around the world. God really did have a sequence for my life that was perfect. God has a dynamic plan for all of us. As long as we are disappointed in man for not meeting our need or we are disappointed in God for not giving us what we think He should or when we think He should, we will be hindered. Acknowledging He has given us everything we need and going to Him over and over to unpack things according to His plan and timing leads to a life full of adventure and fulfillment.

“Wow, a dirt bike track!” The year was 1978 and we had just moved to Sparks, Nevada. I had never seen a BMX track. I took off down the hills and around the curves enjoying the thrill. As I came around one curve, out of nowhere, a group of bicycles racing forced me off the track, causing me to crash over the side of the berm. I was so mad I started cursing those guys out. They came back and starting fighting me. I got beat up bad-swollen lip, black eye. It was a shaming experience and I felt rejected and alone. But worse than the fight was the idea of having to go home and face my dad. The pain I carried was not just from this isolated event, but from a whole system of family life that I lived in. Two key dynamics operate in family systems and effect how we mature: acceptance and vulnerability.

Acceptance versus Judgment

There is no acceptance in the shame system, rather everything is “weighed in the balance” and usually you are “found wanting”. Therefore, there is no flexibility and no room for error. You are either right or wrong. These families do not consider life events on their own merits; rather they judge the person as right or wrong. So secrecy becomes huge. I tried waiting a long time before going home that day. I wanted to see if the swelling would go down and maybe Dad would not notice. Facing my dad’s disappointment and anger only added to the sense of shame I already felt. I could not have put it into words back in those days, but something in me knew it was not okay to have lost a fight. It was not okay to have weakness of any kind; I was either right, or I was out. There was neither comfort nor help to overcome, only judgment and more shame.

Vulnerability

In a respect-based family, the pain would have been just as bad from the fight but I would not have feared going home. I would not have felt “on the outside” with my own family. I would have known Dad would have been on my side. I could have expressed my feelings of indignation to a listening ear that would not ‘weigh me in the balance’ but would have shown comfort and empathy. Merle Fossum says, “People in respect-based families talk openly with one another about their lives rather than manage their relationships with secrets. They are openly vulnerable and dependent or needy at times without judgment.”   

Intimacy with Man and God

In my struggle that day, intimacy and personal development could have grown. I could have learned that I will receive comfort in my weakness, that it is okay to fail, and okay not to be perfect. I could have grown in empathy and ability to live in community. Instead, my pain was denied and judged, which taught me to isolate and have unrealistic standards of perfectionism-only perfect people that can defeat a whole gang of kids are accepted.   

Shame does not just disappear on its own. If we cannot show vulnerability and weakness to people and still feel okay about ourselves, we will not have a capacity for that kind of intimacy with others or even God. This is why people put on masks and try to appear successful or hyper-spiritual. It has been prophesied for years that there will be an end-time people that know their God, walk in radical intimacy and do exploits (Daniel 11:32). I do not believe it will happen by accident. It will happen as we learn principles from the Bible and apply them.