Enhancing Deliverance by Examining the Compassion Root

December 28, 2011 By 3 Comments

By Robert

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.

Filed Under: life skills, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,

Algebra

December 23, 2011 By 2 Comments

By Robert

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.

Filed Under: Christian Coaching, Emotional Health, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

How Personhood Can Overcome Powerlessness

December 3, 2011 By 1 Comment

By Robert

“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.

Filed Under: Personhood, Prayer Ministry, Skill Sets Tagged With: , ,

Family Rules

November 23, 2011 By 4 Comments

By Robert

Way too often people go through life with no real idea why they value what they value, why they have the views they do, or why they have such a tendency to respond to life in certain ways.

It has taken me awhile to understand the concept of family rules. Yet as I got a hold of the concept, I found it to be quite simple. The basic idea is to discover the unspoken rules of your family system growing up because these rules have shaped us in many ways. But what are these rules, and how do you discern them?

It helps me to think in terms of what parents valued versus what they did not value. This could be as simple as comments about something. “Look at that kid’s hair, no wonder he’s in trouble.” Or, “Look at that guy’s work ethic, no wonder he’s prospered.” It could be what we were disciplined over versus what was winked at. “We will not tolerate lying,” maybe was said before a spanking; yet, maybe there was no real concern with who I hung out with or who I dated.

We can have a tendency to look at discovering our unspoken family rules as finding all the things that were wrong and ignoring the positives of our upbringing, yet, most families were a mix of the good and bad. My dad was an alcoholic and there were hurtful things communicated; never-the-less, he had an amazing ability to simply try things and take on challenges without fear.

When I was only eight-years-old my dad came home with a motorcycle and simply said, “Get on and ride,” with no apparent doubt I couldn’t do exactly that. And I did! I had great fun on that motorcycle. He also would just start a business and somehow know it would work. Years later when it came time for me to move to the mission field, I believe that it was this freedom to simply step out and try something, that my dad modeled for me, that gave me a faith to move to another culture and language and job description that would have an incredible steep learning curve.

We cannot help but to take on some of our parents values as well as despise some of their other ones. This can include views on politics, religion, economic status, fashion, education, social conduct, disciplining of children, and so forth.

Discovering these “rules” and working through them can have a profound impact on our lives. Our families affect us whether we acknowledge that or not. We all have conduct received by tradition from our fathers, (1 Peter 1:18). Ways that I am not differentiated from my family will come out in my interaction with others later in life, and we can choose to embrace the good values our parents modeled for us while coming to terms with the not-so-good.
This involves growing in empathy toward our parents’ shortcomings, freeing us to choose something new. This differentiating requires some work, some journaling, some talking things out, but it is well worth it.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, families, life skills Tagged With: , , ,

Running Away, Running Towards

August 23, 2011 By 1 Comment

By Cyndi

Why is it that whenever we get afraid, angry or hurt we like to run away? You know -  escape from pain – avoid it, deny it, anything but deal with it. And running away can come in many different forms. One form is simply quitting (maybe just in your heart and not in reality). We can quit working, quit being a mom, quit trying to loose weight, quit trying to be happy, or even just quit trying, period.

When the going gets tough, many of us get going. It’s much easier to withdraw from the negatives in our life, rather than face them head on, looking eye to eye and dealing with them. But what if we knew that dealing instead of dodging could lead us to a place of serenity and balance? Would we be willing to face the spouse or face the boss if it could lead to better emotional health and wholeness?

Conflicts and controversy are not easily squared off face to face. Texting, emailing and other new technological advances have helped us circumvent these events. We are uncomfortable and feel uneasy when we stare down the conference table and state the only opposing opinion in the room. And it’s much easier to ignore your wife as she audibly puts things away and says everything’s “fine” than to gently discuss the communication breakdown and open-heartedly try to repair the breach. And then there’s the silent teenager, the nosy neighbor, the demanding father, and the co-worker who just won’t listen. We all have variations of these characters in our lives, and we all have relationship with them in some way; so why do we choose to run away from rather than towards them?

Well, it’s very possible that we honestly haven’t learned the life skills needed to handle such situations. Conflict resolution and communication skills are skills that aren’t always taught to us by our parents, teachers, professors or bosses. Unless these are modeled for us, we generally don’t just “pick them up” from nowhere. There are, however, seminars, conferences and books to help us with these (and we here at FOL do some of these things ourselves), and they can be learned.

Another reason we flee is because it’s too fearful; we would rather not try to sort through  this because, bottom line, no one really wants to feel pain. But what we’ve come to see through many, many hours of prayer ministry, is that once you get through the hurt, the uncomfortable feelings, and resolve the reason you are running away, you find out that when you run towards the issues and embrace the disagreement, the opposition, the clash and are able to elucidate and manage it in emotionally healthy ways, life becomes good and pleasant again.

Running towards something is better than running from something. And when we run away, we are running from the very thing that can mature us and cause us to grow.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, life skills Tagged With: , , ,

Peace Is More Than A Symbol

August 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

By Cyndi

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.

Filed Under: Father's Love, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , ,

Shame and Intimacy

August 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Robert

As many of us have experienced, I went through some painful times of rejection growing up: the fight I not only lost, I didn’t even see coming; my best friend deciding to un-friend me; Dad not showing up to watch me compete in the skateboard contest. And there are the smaller things. Getting yelled at when you didn’t even realize you were in error, getting disciplined in a demeaning way. These experiences caused me to wear a mask, to put forth an image of myself that seemed more acceptable than simply being me. It was not unlike when Adam suddenly had the need to cover his newly self-conscious nakedness with fig leaves and hide when God showed up because he was afraid.

There are many masks we can adopt. In grade school I was the class cut-up. In high school there were many manifestations of the mask: you had the nerd crowd, the jocks, the heavy-metal kids, and some country. I was a preppy druggy. I made fun of the goody-two-shoes nerds, the spastic jocks, and the loser heavy-metal crowd. Don’t even get me started on the rednecks. Then I got saved and became Bible man. No one could know the Bible better than me. I became a spaz for God. But in all of these examples I was hiding, wearing a mask. It didn’t feel okay to simply be me.

We all have ways we hide, things we don’t ever want others to see about us, things we don’t even want to know about ourselves. Nobody is completely exempt from dealing with issues of shame. However, the idea is to be ever moving toward intimacy (“into-me-see”). This is were we can be transparent, genuine, and vulnerable. This is where we can find connection with God and others and come out of loneliness.

God wants us all to be His transparent bride, who looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, awesome as an army with banners (Song 6).

Filed Under: Father's Love Tagged With: , , ,

Being A Person

July 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

By Robert

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.

Filed Under: Personhood, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: ,

Running From Emotions

July 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Cyndi

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.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, life skills, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,

Obama Lovers

July 15, 2011 By 2 Comments

By Robert

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.

Filed Under: Boundaries, control, life skills, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,
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