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

A woman walks into her husband’s office and he immediately complains that she’s late. She sharply replies that she had to drop the kids off at school. Angered by this, the husband states that she should have planned better so as not to be late.

There was a major 20-year study of marriages where they looked at what skills that successful marriages have that unsuccessful marriages do not. The study unanimously found one skill predominant over every other. That skill was the ability to believe the best of one another even in an argument and not automatically assume that one partner had bad motives or that somebody was wrong.

Most arguments are usually over a difference of opinion, a difference in priority, or a difference in value. So when a couple can hear each others’ heart and keep the conversation safe where each person can say what they’re feeling and what their priority is, a way forward can be found. However, even if we know this skill, many times it breaks down. Especially if we get triggered.

If we get triggered, the chances are not so good that we’ll be able to hear one another’s hearts, so what we often do instead is create drama. Cutting remarks, the silent treatment, some type of drama to avoid feeling something we don’t really want to feel.

A real tool we can use if we notice that the skill is breaking down is to simply ask ourselves the question, “What am I not wanting to feel here? What feeling am I trying to avoid through this drama I’m creating?”  In the case of the example we used at the beginning, it was a feeling of insecurity that the husband was trying to avoid, hence the angry tone and drama he was creating.

Let’s look at this scenario again in a different light:
A woman walks into her husband’s office and he immediately complains that she’s late. She sharply replies that she had to drop the kids off at school. He then tells of his concern as it got later and later, and how he felt insecure and that maybe she didn’t care what was important to him. With this, she calmly replies that she was rushing to get there, but one of the kids had left a book at home so she had to go back to get it, causing her to be late. Upon hearing this explanation, the husband defuses and apologizes for jumping to conclusions and creating drama.

Have you ever hidden things about yourself? Maybe ways you’ve felt jealous of someone or threatened by someone? Ways you’ve struggled with a habitual sin? Maybe it’s walking around with an angry edge but never really addressing it. This can often lead to feelings of condemnation, hopelessness, struggles with loneliness, or anxieties. One night at a restaurant I observed another couple who didn’t talk or look at each other the entire meal. The husband just sat there reading a book as they ate. There was no intimacy between them. Clearly they had some issues in their hearts that had not come to the light.

Hiding things about ourselves hinders fellowship and keeps us from feeling clean on the inside.

So often we try to handle things on our own, putting up a strong front, but this is independence. Independence is the opposite of fellowship. Independence is what blocks our true heartfelt connection with God and man. What is the key to effectively deal with this? It starts with understanding how to come to the light.

We come to the light when we risk trusting someone enough to open up to them. Exposing our interior secrets and struggles to another person shines a light into the dark corners of our hearts.

Is there someone who really knows you? Someone who knows you well enough to see your patterns? One to whom you trust enough to put the walls down and allow to speak into your life?

1 John 5:7 says, “If we walk in the light… we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.”

There are two primary things here. One, light brings us to experience true, effective fellowship wherein we feel connected and no longer lonely. And two, light is where the blood cleanses us, where it becomes effective, where our heart can truly receive forgiveness, and we feel clean.

If you’ve been in emotional pain, feeling cut off, struggling with anger or fear, take a step. Find someone you trust and begin coming to the light.

We live in a world that values strength and belittles weakness. We idolize characters such as Rambo, John Wayne, and Jason Bourne. It is so easy to feel that there is no way to advance in life if people see our weaknesses, our personal struggles. So we tend to be drawn toward hiding these things about ourselves. We want to put them in the dark where no one can see them. Yet, if we can’t even acknowledge we have struggles, how can we ever hope to overcome them? Understanding what is darkness and what is light puts a huge tool in our hands for growth.

Blatant sin, of course, is darkness; however, there can be smaller, less noticeable ways where we might be living in the dark. 1 John 1:6 says,”… if we say we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, we lie and do not follow the truth.” So what exactly does this “living in darkness” mean? Simply put, anything that is hidden and not exposed. To paraphrase Andrew Murray’s definition of humility, darkness is not being willing to be known for who we really are.

If we are humble – being known for who we really are – then we find no reason to hide our past, our present struggles, or our future dreams. But being open and transparent like this involves risk. If we were to divulge certain things about ourselves, people may reject us or make fun of us, or even worse, they may not love and accept us. And it’s possible they may abandon us.

It’s much easier to stay in the dark than to take the chance of living in openness and transparency, but unfortunately, there are “friends” that tend to hang around us there. Fear, worry, anxiety, shame, guilt – all of these can be our ‘best friends’ when we’re in darkness. And there’s no peace or rest there. Only by embracing light do we position ourselves to experience growth.

We can be free from our past and live emotionally present in all our relationships today! By facing the hidden darkness in our lives, we can find freedom to be who we really are, unashamedly. Light is the place where we have the actual experience of feeling secure in our Father’s arms and live open-hearted to the world.

We continue this week talking about Strongholds in preparation for our upcoming webinar Foundations for Freedom. This week I’m sharing about patterns.

Spotting a pattern of a repeated struggle in our lives can actually be good news. The very pattern that so frustrates us can point out the solution. Patterns can help us connect bad fruit with the bad root.

So, how do you know if you have a pattern of bad fruit? When you seem to hit a wall over and over in your life, running into the same circumstances and situations.

Some people seem to end up with overbearing authority figures in their lives again and again. Others start to do okay financially only to have the bottom fall out on them repeatedly. I’ve ministered to people who get walked on or betrayed time after time, with each episode looking very similar to the one before.

Frank found himself in one bad business partnership after another. His partner would end up finding fault with him, saying he was incompetent and then use that to take his clients. There was a lot of pain here for Frank. He could see where it had happened over and over, even as far back as when he was on high school sports teams.

As Frank held this before the Lord, he was reminded of how his own father had betrayed him, promising things and then not coming through and even telling him he couldn’t do anything right and was “good for nothing.”

Frank knew his dad had been like this and had even at some level forgiven him. But what he had not seen before was the connection of this root of bitterness to how it was defiling his present-tense relationships. As Frank pulled up these roots, he found a new freedom.

Hebrews 12:15 encourages us to look carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

Romans 2:1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

Seeing these truths puts powerful tools in our hands for freedom.

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.

With Christmas upon us, I’ve been thinking a lot about the birth of Jesus. For example, look at  Mary. She was just an ordinary teenager and an angel shows up one day telling her she’s going to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and give birth to God’s Son. Now I don’t believe that’s something you would eagerly text all your friends about and immediately put as your Facebook status. This was big – really big! Even a little bit “out there,” you might say. But as we know, Mary received the message from the angel with great humility and seriousness.

After Jesus was born, when all the shepherds showed up at the stable, they told Mary and Joseph the amazing story of how an angel had appeared to them announcing the birth of the Savior – the Christ – and were given directions to where the child lay. The shepherds explained they had seen multitudes of angels filling the sky, singing and praising God. It was an unbelievable story! And what did Mary do with all this? She pondered these things in her heart (Luke 2:19).

So here’s what I’ve been thinking: I believe most of us have heard something God told us that seems a bit “out there.” Maybe it’s something we’re supposed to be, something we’re supposed to do, some sort of “dream” or idea we’ve had deep down in our spirits for a long time, perhaps even as a child. It may have been forgotten or put away because it seemed so large, so inconceivable, or so unimaginable; but my word to you today is consider the impossible. Just consider it. Ponder it.

Many of our societies today have lost the art of pondering, taking time to thoroughly consider, pray, and weigh things out. I challenge you to contemplate those things God may have planted deep in your spirit. Were they just childish wishful dreams, or were they legitimate words from the Lord about your calling and true purpose in life? I can’t answer these questions, but God can. So I encourage you to be like Mary and treasure up, keep those things in your heart. God uses us ordinary people so He can do the extraordinary. Consider the impossible. (Luke 1:37)

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.