Has your car ever been stuck in the mud? You give it gas again and again, putting it in forward and reverse. You get muddy as you try putting a rock under the tire. Nothing works. You feel powerless. Many people have an area of their lives like this. I know some people who have struggled with anxiety most of their lives, myself included. Others have never been able to rightly relate to a controlling mother-in-law. Some have battled anger and feel as if they never can get forward movement toward their dreams. Not giving up is a theme many movies have used to tug on deep heart strings; however, a key component to being able to not give up is to never stop learning.

Have you ever savored the work of a good carpenter? The intricate woodwork, the smooth fit and finish in a dark cherry; it’s exquisite. How does he do it? Skill and know how are clearly a big part, but also the knowledge of the right tool at the right time is huge. At our webinar this week we will discuss tools for removing blockages to being fully in the light so as to find growth in our issues. We will also explore techniques for more critically defining the fruit and root of our roadblocks which leads to more effectively overcoming them.

It is easy to feel discouraged over the things we’ve struggled with for years. There’s not only a sense of hopelessness but many times a feeling of loss. Nevertheless, these roadblocks actually can become our very stepping stones into our destinies as we are equipped with authority in the area of what we have overcome, and  have compassion for others who are stuck in a similar way.

In our upcoming webinar we will unpack some intricate tools for detailed carpenter work in finding freedom. These are tools Robert uses in the toughest cases of prayer ministry he encounters. We will also have some interactive exercises to increase our “know how” with these tools.

Come and join us this Thursday.

Foundations of Freedom Webinar, Thursday February 9,
7-8pm Eastern Time
Cost is $10. Registration required.
904-270-9472
info@fountainsoflife.org

CLICK HERE to watch video of this blog

Deliverance can be a powerful tool in our arsenal to help people find freedom. Nevertheless, I commonly run into people who have tried it without much result. Sometimes we have taken authority over the bad fruit but not fully gotten at the root underneath it. It is not enough for the minister to recognize the problem and take authority. The person receiving must recognize it and have peace with what happened and compassion toward those who caused pain. With a few added keys, deliverance is as easy as spreading room temperature butter.

Melanie struggled for years trusting her husband with finances. She felt so powerless and insecure when she left them in his hands and didn’t micromanage. She acknowledges there’s a problem, has prayed over it and yet still struggles. Looking back at her childhood, she has recognized that her dad had a gambling problem and many times had lost his whole paycheck by the time he made it home, putting the family through many hardships and pain. Melanie had prayed deliverance prayers and taken authority over generational iniquity. She had renounced closing her heart toward her dad. Nevertheless, she was still struggling with trusting her husband.

We worked with Melanie to examine her heart and see if she was at a place of truly forgiving her dad for mishandling finances and even having compassion on him for his compulsion. When she looked more clearly into her heart, what she actually felt was a sense of powerlessness and abandonment. Not only did it seem her dad wasn’t there, but even God felt distant when it came to finances. This gives legal ground to the enemy and renders attempts at deliverance ineffective.

As we lifted this to the Lord, God let her know that He’d always been there for her and has always taken care of her well, despite the many financial hardships from her father’s gambling.

Melanie prayed again and renounced closing her heart to her dad as well as her husband in the area of finances. It now felt easy and free. She can now trust her husband in this area.

So often we fight the fruit but haven’t fully gotten at the root. Compassion is an excellent test. When we can look at the person who has hurt us and not only feel free but even see the pain they’ve been in that has driven their behavior, we are on the road to freedom. Then deliverance becomes easy like butter.

Has your car ever been stuck in the mud way outside of town? Your wheels just sit there and spin; there is no one to call and you’re just stuck. Some people are stuck like that in their Christian life. They struggle to live the Christian life victoriously or their marriages reduce to the same battles again and again. So often this results from not understanding the growth process.

People often try to feel exhorted into obedience, to work up enough willpower and passion. Over the years, as this doesn’t workout, they settle.

It is hugely empowering to see that emotional health and maturity are skills. Skills can be learned; there are steps to get there. When we see this, it restores hope. It’s no longer a matter that, “If I can just get motivated enough;” now it’s, “I need to discover the steps.”

Trying to exhort myself to emotional health is like telling someone who’s learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide to go do complex algebra. They can’t do it regardless of how much they want to. The needed foundation is there, but they then have to learn the basic skills of algebra, what steps and processes are done, in what order, and so on.

Our passion at Fountains of Life is to give tools to people that empower them and help them to discover those steps and the emotional maturity needed to fulfill their destinies. We offer workshops, articles, CDs, as well as prayer ministry.

It is possible to walk in wholeness, peace, and balance while being an activated member of your family, your church and your community.

Have you ever been in a Nor’easter? Here in Florida we get them throughout the winter season. Unlike the summertime when the sky touches the water on a flat line and the wind is calm and the air is balmy, the cold weather blows in with white caps streaking like a blanket over the ocean and the horizon’s straight line is now wavy from the peaks and valleys on the water.

And you know what else happens with a Nor’easter? All the soft sand on the beach blows away and exposes the shells and everything else underneath it. Herein lies our lesson. What happens when the Lord allows the Nor’easters in our lives to blow over us and the things we have hidden get exposed? How do we respond when we feel like those shells lying uncovered on the beach for everyone to see?

We all have things hidden under the sand. Most of us don’t want to talk about them, but the Lord knows they are there. The winter seasons can bring about pain and unresolved issues as holidays bring together broken families and sometimes old memories we’d hoped to forget. The strong winds lay the wounds wide open at times.

But instead of hiding our hurts, what if we brought everything out into the open? What if we were truthful with our hearts, and put things out before the Lord, asking Him to help us? Healing could finally come. An unknown cancer living in our bodies can’t be healed if we don’t know it’s there. Likewise, pushed down anger, bitterness, jealousy, or unforgiveness can’t be released if we can’t acknowledge it. Not that we do so to blame or purposefully harm anyone, but keeping things in the dark doesn’t allow the light of God to touch it.

If the Lord is blowing a Nor’easter your way, that’s okay. There are treasures to be found hidden under the soft sand. Let us know if we can be of any help.

“A bill arrived that was overdue, with late fees. Once again my wife became critical of me; things always seem to end up being my fault. I try to keep peace with her. I have tried to talk with her about it so many times. It just feels hopeless.”

Most people I work with in prayer ministry at some level struggle with a sense of  powerlessness. There is a repeated pattern of struggle with their spouse, child, boss, even their self. They have tried to overcome it numerous times and just have not been able to be successful.  Often they haven’t seen the skill set needed to overcome. I can mention some of these skill sets such as:  keeping the conversation safe, standing up for yourself without putting the other down, and setting boundaries; however, the person often feels like they can’t apply these skills, they feel powerless, hopeless.

Understanding the roots to this gives a paradigm snapshot of effective prayer ministry. It starts by understanding the nature of abuse and personhood.

Personhood is defined as someone who feels comfortable in their own skin. This comfort with ourselves and who we are is borne out of our mental and emotional boundaries being respected and our physical space being protected. All abuse involves the crossing of these boundaries.

“What’s wrong with you, don’t you even care about your grades?”

There’s no real dialogue here, no seeking to value and know the heart of the other, where their struggle is, or how we might help. There’s a demeaning of thought and feeling. Demeaning words imply fault or defect. It ultimately treats the person like an object, “I don’t care how you feel or what you think, do what I say.” This is how I would treat an object – like a nail – I don’t care how it feels, I pound on it whenever I want.

This treatment communicates the child has inherent flaws and it brings a sense of powerlessness. It makes them feel like they don’t just have a problem that can be worked out through the proper steps but rather that it is hopeless, they’re flawed.

Developing personhood gives us the confidence to risk trying, to be able to problem solve. When we have lived with the dignity of having our boundaries protected, we learn to love well, to respect ourselves and to respect others.

What do you think of when you think of peace? My thoughts go to descriptions like quietness, calmness, lack of strife and contention. It is a non-warring condition. It is a place of silence and stillness, whether that be in physical surroundings or internally in my spirit. Peace is more than a symbol, more than a “hip” greeting to others. It is a state of being.

Many of us are living in conditions of turmoil and stress everyday, much like the sea on which the disciples found themselves in the middle of in Mark 4. As the great storm was upon them and the waves were crashing on the sides of the ship, Jesus remained asleep on a pillow through it all. He was at peace. He stayed at peace. He was peace. When He was awakened by His frantic friends who were fear-stricken to death, He simply brought His peace to His surroundings and calmed the sea. The wind and the waves ceased and there was calm.

Isn’t it wonderful to be in that kind of a calm? That hush where there’s no stirring or movement? Jesus can bring this. He is the Prince of Peace. This is where I need to go when my mind won’t stop running. This is Who I need to turn to when my circumstances won’t change but stay churning all around me. This is the place of comfort I need to be enveloped in when my present situations do nothing but remind me of my past.

Is this possible? With God, all things are possible. “But how do I get there?” you may ask. Sometimes we have to labour to enter into the rest. We have to work at it, be willing to face the pain, the conflict, the discomfort and let God deal with it. As we discover what is behind the chaos, His truth will set us free, and we can rest in His loving arms.

Yes, peace is more than a symbol. It’s a person, and His name is Jesus. Sometimes He’s hard to find in the whirlwind. So stop. Quiet yourself and look for Him in the still small voice.

One huge way Prayer Ministry can help people is in the discerning between healthy guilt and shame.

Objects
When we lived in the Dominican Republic, we had a horse that could take us up the mountain. My soul sang as we road the trail, seeing the wilderness along the way and the views of the city from above. We loved our horse and named her Hannah. It was a point of humor to many Dominicans that we named our horse. Animals were tools to them – something used for a purpose. Sometimes people are treated that way. Verbal, physical, and sexual abuse treat a person as if they were an object. Shame dwells here. This can cause real trouble for our maturing as Christians.

Healthy Guilt versus Shame
Violations are a part of life. We all have short comings; we all fail at something from time to time;  we all have habits we struggle with. Life events are sometimes hurtful.

When we are struggling with feelings of shame and our boss yells at us at work, our car breaks down at the worst moment possible, or we suddenly find ourselves in a conflict with someone we care about, it can feel very anxious. Often we either react too strongly, move into silence and the cold shoulder, or we say something hasty or sarcastic.

The line between healthy guilt and shame can get blurry. When I live from a place of feeling loved and feeling like it is okay to be me, I can take violations on their face value. I can discern if my core values have been crossed and I can make any repair deemed necessary, whether that is to simply repent to God or go to someone and apologize. When I have issues of shame, a violation attacks who I am as a person – it touches my personhood. I then have feelings of shame, embarrassment, inferiority, and rejection. It’s not just that I did wrong or received a wrong, but these violations mean that I am wrong.

Prayer Ministry is very effective in helping us work through shame issues and learning not to run to rejection each time we fail or when life’s events throw us a curve ball. This then puts us into a learning relationship with life. Our core values get more defined and personal growth occurs.

Have you ever noticed that when we are frustrated or upset with something we tend to look for relief and escape rather than looking into the source and cause of it? I know when my day is going awry, my computer is freaking out, and nothing seems to be right, I just want a Diet Dr. Pepper. Chips, French fries, and ice cream all seem to help too. It makes me feel better, at least for a moment, but then the problem is usually still there afterwards and now with added guilt for eating something unhealthy.

I get cravings when my emotions are fired up and tend to be swayed by them at that point. Instead of searching through the emotions as to why I’m so upset, frustrated, angry, sad (you fill in the blank here), I run to food, Facebook or “freedom” – I choose to run away. I choose comfort. All those disturbing emotions are uncomfortable, why would I want to deal with them?

David had this same nature in him. If you look through Psalm 77, the beginning verses are full of distressful emotions. Most of them pretty hopeless and despairing. But David found a key to dealing with his emotions – he told all of his frustrations and feelings to God. He chose to pour out his heart to the Lord and as he did, from verses 10 and 11, he began to remember the goodness of the Lord. He found Godsight, which is seeing things from God’s perspective.

By seeing things from God’s perspective, we see them with Him – we step back out of our emotions that we are entangled with and get a different view, a much better view. David acknowledged his emotions and took them to God instead of just running from them.

This is a great example for me to follow. As I just want to get through the day so I can “treat” myself to an Oreo milkshake after work to “make it all go away” and feel better that it’s finally over, I could choose to take a moment to talk to the Lord about what’s going on in my day AS it’s happening. I could tell Him this malfunctioning printer is troubling me deeply because I can’t finish my work. I could ask Him why do I get irate when something breaks around the house. And you know, whenever I have stopped and done this, either by journaling or talking, God shows up, like in David’s case, and He pulls me up so I can see things from His view. I get Godsight, my emotions settle down, and I come up with ways to handle the situation. The problem may not always be solved, but I’m calm enough now to deal with it. And the Diet Dr. Pepper and ice cream are not my “savior” anymore, He is.

Think of all the Facebook posts, tweets and emails you receive on President Obama. There is generally a common theme: in some way he is doing something wrong or violating our values. However, how often do you see a post on a prayer strategy for God to work in Obama’s life? We spend a lot of time focusing on the problems and very little on being a part of the answer. I believe this points to a much greater problem in the church at large.

Picture a girl that grew up in a great home. Her parents were very healthy emotionally. Her whole life she saw her parents resolve conflict in a respect-based way. There was no blame; everyone had a voice. No one was belittled for their thoughts and opinions, even when wrong. People were held accountable for their actions. Affection was prevalent. Fast forward years later when the girl becomes a young adult and meets an attractive young man. She notices fairly quickly little ways he lacks respect of other people’s boundaries. She may not have all the language for it, but she knows deep inside, “This boy is not like Dad.” Maybe at first she tries to call him on it. He accuses her of being overly sensitive or unable to take a joke. She understands that it is not funny and feels confident in that belief. Because of what was modeled for her by her parents, she can be secure, sense the wrong, drop him and move on to date someone else.

Most of us were not raised in such a home and do not have the ability to recognize these things. In this case, these emotional skills will have to be learned as an adult. Many people end up being hurt by others, however, the reality is, no one can hurt us unless we let them. It is easy to put all the emphasis on the predator being so very wrong, but the victim that allows the behavior also needs healing and growth.

Feeling powerless at times is a universal theme but there is no future in it. When I find myself complaining about someone or something, what is underlying that is a feeling of powerlessness. I am allowing that person or thing to affect my life; I am allowing it to influence and change me.

If President Obama is promoting policies that are anti-Israel or pro-abortion, yes, we need to have a voice, yet respectfully. We also need to be fasting and praying or our voice may be more based in our fears rather than in our faith. There is no place for complaining and gossiping about our president. Those things indicate much more than a president we don’t like. They reveal issues of victim thinking, powerlessness, and ways we still struggle to trust God; and these issues need to be dealt with.

Ever feel stuck?
Picture being in the office at your desk. Your boss makes you nervous in the best of circumstances. You’ve been hurt by male authority in the past and he represents that well. He’s overbearing, demanding, demeaning. Now he’s standing over you waiting for you to finish typing out something he asked for. You feel tense and it’s hard to think clear and not fumble and mess it up. Later you just can’t stop thinking about what a jerk he is.

Has someone treated you poorly and you just can’t stop thinking about it? Maybe it’s a personal challenge, a battle you’ve struggled with for years. Maybe it’s a family member that won’t respect your boundaries no matter what you do. These types of things can really affect us emotionally, locking us into a state of agitation and anger or worry and anxiety. When our minds cannot make sense of something and don’t see any way forward, we feel stuck and play the tape over and over again.

Journaling for Emotional Health
Sometimes you need to receive prayer ministry. Yet, often you can work it out with the Lord. Here are some steps:
1) Treat your emotions as an objective reporter. Distance yourself a bit. When you get stuck, you enter a state of mind that impairs your ability to think clearly. Step back and look at yourself.
2) Write out step by step what’s occurred that bothers you. Remember, you are just journaling, putting it all down between you and God, so there’s no need to hold back.
3) Write out your feelings as best you can at each step of what happened. By making note of your feelings and emotions, you engage the right side of the brain which then works together with the left side’s logical documentation of events. With the blending of the two together it helps to make sense of what happened.
4) Write out why the other person may have acted as they did. What may have been their motives? What may have been their insecurities? Again, trying to journal this out as an objective observer, not judging it right or wrong, appropriate or not, in context or not. Simply brainstorming different scenarios. Try putting yourself in their shoes.
5) Tell the Lord what makes you angry about it, why it seems unfair. Tell Him what makes you fearful about it, what makes you feel threatened, how it makes your body feel. By notating your body sensations, this too, helps make connections in the brain that will open the way for better understanding.
6)  Ask the Lord His perspective at the different steps of what happened. Write out what you think He may be telling you.

In reflecting and journaling about an issue, we can gain much understanding about ourselves and others. We may begin to see some core issues of why we are anxious or fearful, or stubborn or irritated. And by engaging both right and left sides of the brain, science is proving that we are able to make sense of the events in our life, get unstuck, and continue to move forward. And isn’t that what we all want—to walk with the Lord, not stand still? This is a great tool and life skill to help us tend well the garden of our heart.