Show Me My Heart, Lord
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).
Second Day of Camp
On the second day, I was in charge of the all-camp auction. I missed the morning service so I could prepare. As I organized the games, I thought about my dad and how he loved to play cards and games. In those moments of reflection, God began softening my heart toward my father.
I contemplated the message from the night before. It helped me understand my father’s childhood better. I realized he had never felt loved as a child raised in a home with an alcoholic parent.
My mind took a natural turn toward my mother, and I quickly resisted any tender thoughts toward her. I just didn’t believe God could ever change my feelings toward my mother, and in truth, I didn’t want them to change. My hate for my mother was so intense—it only made me angry when I thought of her. As I recalled my last visit home eighteen months earlier, I was committed more than ever to never return home again.
Wanda, my sister, flew in from Alaska, and I flew in from Colorado to help our mother move back into her home. She was already living with her third boyfriend in sixteen months since my father’s death. His wife wanted to return home, so my mother was asked to leave his house.
Mom’s home had been vandalized while living with this latest boyfriend, and now the house was unlivable. We began the tedious task of cleaning out junk piled four feet high in every room, hauling off trash, running errands, and filing reports with the police.
Our visit was stressful and tiring. My mother followed me around accusing me of stealing from her and called me a liar. It was difficult to help her when she was suspicious of everything I did. I berated myself for flying out to help her.
It was clear that she was suffering from short-term memory loss and the beginning of Alzheimer’s. She was constantly losing her purse, and we spent much of our time looking for it. After five days, we gave up and made different arrangements for her to live with friends.
When our mother walked away from us toward her friend’s house, at the exact same moment, my sister and I both shivered from head to toe in revulsion.
Back out on the LA freeway, I turned to Wanda and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m not coming back. I’m sick of pretending I care, when the truth is I don’t. I’m not even coming back for her funeral.”
Wanda is so sweet. She would give you the shirt off her back. She turned to me and asked, “Why not? It will be the first time in our entire lives that we will be in control.”
As the significance of her words hit me, a sly smile spread across my face. I replied, “Let’s cremate her.”
Wanda looked confused as she said, so innocently, “Mom doesn’t want to be cremated.”
My smile grew, and I felt great joy and satisfaction as I mischievously replied, “I know.” Instantly, we were both laughing hysterically.
Catching her breath, she replied, “Oh, this is rich. We have to think of just the right place to spread her ashes.”
Without even thinking, I immediately replied, “The dump!” We laughed until the tears rolled down our cheeks and our driving became hazardous. Between bursts of laughter, I added, “Who said you can’t be buried with all of your possessions. We’ll just load up all of her stuff and haul it to the dump. She always liked complete strangers better than us anyway. Let them visit her. And I’m going to get some of those tiny, pink Baskin-Robbins™ spoons, and we can all say good riddance to her by flicking her ashes over all her stuff at the dump.”
Imitating my future actions, I dipped my little spoon down in her imaginary ashes and flung them toward the windshield, saying, “That’s for the time you held a knife to my throat and threatened to slit my throat and I had to quit school.”
Like a relay runner receiving the baton in a race, Wanda flicked her imaginary ashes, saying, “That’s for the time you said you would lend me the money to buy that beautiful piano I wanted so badly and then changed your mind, and I lost my $250 deposit.”
I angrily dipped and flicked her ashes, “That’s for selling my dog while I was away at church camp, even after you promised you would never sell her! Tikki was the only one who loved me.”
Wanda dipped and flicked, “That’s for Judy. You told her she could have Dad’s little dogs after he died. Then, the day before she was to arrive to pick them up, you sold them to a complete stranger. Judy needed those dogs to love in Dad’s absence.”
I flicked ashes for my brother, “That’s for finding fault with everything Richard did!” Dip. Flick. Dip. Flick. Offenses flowed freely from us over and over while we laughed and flicked the ashes for over fifteen minutes. It felt good.
Then my sister sobered and looked sad yet very serious while saying, “I hope mother doesn’t die too soon.”
I could have said, “Who cares?” But I simply asked, “Why?”
Wanda replied, “I have a very long list to make out. I just don’t want her to die before I have time to complete it.”
Looking her in the eye, I replied, “I’m going to cremate her. I will get to the funeral home first and tell them my decision. I will not change my mind.”
Later on the plane, I grieved that my sister’s list was so long that it would take months or even years to complete.
All four of us had long lists of hurts. Our mother was a very angry, mean, hurtful person who never forgave nor ever forgot a single thing. She was controlling and insensitive and would think nothing of publicly humiliating us. She dominated, pressured, and manipulated us to get what she wanted. There was no way anyone could meet her high expectations—she was always angry about something. And there was no way I could feel anything for her except hate, disgust, and contempt.
Steve attended the morning service at camp by himself. That afternoon, he carefully studied Drew’s handouts while I ran the auction.
The auction ended successfully allowing me just enough time to shower, gobble dinner, and slip into the service right as it started. I was definitely in the conquer-it, hurry-up mode: Git ‘er done, have fun, and move on to the next task. Fortunately, God remembered my prayer from the night before: “God, if there is anything in my heart from my past that is causing me to treat both of my boys in an ungodly manner; will you reveal it to me? I promise that I will do whatever it takes to clean up my heart.”
Drew began to speak about the child who is often labeled ADD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). I really listened because Adam had been tested for this when he was in the second grade. Of course, he tested positive—no mystery there.
Drew emphasized that a child who is diagnosed with ADD is often a child who is emotionally abused. I was honest enough with myself to admit that might be true in Adam’s case. I had sometimes yelled at him and had been, at times, a harsh disciplinarian to both boys since they were little. I just didn’t have a gentle way about me.
Drew went on to explain about a child that can’t sit still in the classroom. How his lack of focus causes him more problems, which causes learning difficulties. He went on to describe the difficulty this child would have in school and with his teachers and parents.
All of a sudden, I began to tear up without warning. I had remembered something that happened to me forty-one years earlier. I could remember and feel the emotions I felt when I was eight years old. My tears soon increased to sniffles and then to outright sobbing. I was being emotionally pulled from the car like Jonathan in “The Accident.” My emotions were raw and real. All my life I hid my past and forced myself not to think of painful memories. This time, I let God remind me. I let the tears flow without trying to stop them (my will submitted to God’s leading). I was feeling (emotions unrestrained), and I had promised God I would go where He led me as He allowed me to remember. Steve and I left the service so I wouldn’t disturb others nearby.
I couldn’t stop crying. We sat on a bench outside the chapel and he held me while I cried. Finally, he asked, “Could you share with me what you’re feeling?”
“I remembered something,” I cried.
“What?”
“When I was eight, we moved to Newfoundland to a new air force base. Everyone was ahead of me in school. My teacher sent a note home to tell my parents I needed some help because I was behind in almost every subject and I couldn’t tell time. I thought they would help me,” I bawled. “I took the note home to my dad. He got so angry and yelled, ‘No daughter of mine is going to be stupid!’ He sent me upstairs with my two older sisters and told them to teach me how to tell time. He said he would come up in half an hour and I had better know how to tell time or he would ‘beat the crap out of me’ (that’s the nice way of saying it).”
“I was scared to death and cried the whole half hour. My sisters tried to teach me. They tried to calm me down, but in the end, I couldn’t learn under all the pressure and fear.”
“When my dad came up and found out I still couldn’t tell time, he pulled on his belt buckle. I heard his belt hiss through the belt loops as he whipped it free. He hit me over and over because I couldn’t tell time.”
I wept openly as Steve held me. “I was just a little girl,” I told him.
“My father cussed and yelled at me, three inches from my face. He yelled that I was stupid and called me names. Then he said he would be back in another half hour. Fear set in, and the whole scene repeated itself again and again.” I was really crying now.
“I was just a little girl,” I just kept repeating to Steve, over and over. “I don’t remember how many times my dad came back and spanked me. I can’t remember. I know I didn’t learn to tell time that night. I must have learned eventually because I can tell time now.” I smiled as I wiped away tears.
“How did you feel that night?” he asked me.
I really had to think about that. I didn’t often think about feelings or express them in words. It was like a foreign language to me.
“I felt afraid. My dad was so big and angry. I felt like he didn’t love me. He made me feel like I wasn’t good enough and that I was stupid.” As I talked, Steve wrote each feeling down on a piece of paper. “I felt pressured to learn and angry. I felt the time pressure and knew I couldn’t do it. Everyone was talking to me at once, and I couldn’t please everyone at once, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t do it. I guess I felt like a failure. I felt like I was being set up to do something I couldn’t do. I felt defenseless and overwhelmed. I felt rejected, unacceptable and that I didn’t measure up. Did I say afraid? I felt like I was in trouble, like I did something wrong, and I was afraid of doing it again, only I didn’t know what I did wrong.”
Then Steve asked me these simple questions that reached deep into my heart and changed my life. “Do you think your dad was ever loved by anyone?”
“No. I realized that last night,” I said, crying again. “I learned that an alcoholic (my dad’s father) is consumed with his own pain and can’t love anyone. His mother was emotionally in pain as well and angry and didn’t know how to love either.”
Then Steve asked softly, “Do you think your dad knew how to love you?”
My answer was again, “No.”
“Do you think you could forgive your dad for spanking you and making you feel stupid and afraid?”
I knew my dad was wrong in his treatment of me that night, but for the first time in my life, all I cared about in that moment was him. He was guilty, but I didn’t want him to have to pay me back for all the pain and fear he instilled in me that night. He was already full of his own pain and loneliness acquired from his childhood and the rest of his life. I felt a tremendous need to forgive him and let go of all my bitterness and hidden anger and fear toward him. I wanted to forgive him for his sake, not mine. That’s what it feels like when you are in your heart and seeking God’s own heart. You forgive the other person, not expecting anything in return for yourself (facts and emotions merge into a realization of the entire truth, and the will chooses to forgive from the heart). For a brief moment, while I was in my heart, I cared about my father and was not distracted by the enemy through my own pain.
I stayed in my heart and didn’t stop to think. I just let Steve lead me in a prayer to forgive my dad. I didn’t understand the prayer included on our handouts, so Steve led me in a prayer similar to that one, changing some of the words so I could understand it. It went something like this:
Jesus, I choose to forgive my dad for spanking me, yelling at me and calling me stupid for not knowing how to tell time, causing me to feel afraid, stupid (Steve read off all the things I had told him I felt, and I repeated them out loud in my prayer), pressured, to be afraid of authority—causing me to hate him—causing me to feel that I couldn’t trust him to help me. I don’t want to hate him anymore. I don’t want him to have to pay for what he did to me, I cried. I am willing to pay for his sin done to me. I just want to let it all go.
Then I asked, “Can I do this even though my dad is dead?”
“Yes,” Steve replied. Then he continued, “Do you think Jesus wants you to forgive your dad?”
I cried, “Yes.” My prayer continued:
Jesus, Satan got a stronghold in my heart that day through my anger and fear, and he has been using it as a base of operation in my life to slowly destroy me. Jesus, will you take back that stronghold from the enemy? Now, I give that portion of my heart to you for your control. Please forgive me for my bitterness and anger toward my father. Please fill that part of my heart with your love and your peace. Thank you, Jesus.
For the first time in my life, I finally could feel God’s love. Really feel it and understand just how much He loved me when He died on Calvary for my sins. I looked right at Steve and said, “Now, I finally understand what Jesus did for me on Calvary. I really understand. I was guilty and didn’t deserve to be forgiven, but he loved me and wanted to forgive me. He didn’t want me to have to pay. He paid for me.” I cried as Steve held me.
What a great sacrifice of love for me. It felt so wonderful to forgive my father and to release him from the burden and pain of his sin. Even though my father had been dead for almost four years, I still needed to forgive him.
I realized Jesus commands us to forgive our offenders because He loves us. He knows unforgiveness leads to bitterness and gives ground to the enemy for his stronghold in our heart. When we forgive someone who is guilty and who doesn’t deserve to be forgiven, only then can we truly understand what Christ did for us on Calvary. Like Christ, we can forgive and expect nothing in return. Forgiveness is an opportunity in life to love the way Christ loved us—unconditionally, with no strings attached and with no thought of the cost to ourselves.
When I said I was willing to pay for my dad’s sin, I thought I would feel rotten—as if garbage or something awful was being dumped on me. I was prepared for it. However, just before it landed on me, it felt like Jesus stepped right in front of me and received it all. That’s when I realized how Jesus paid for and still pays for everyone’s sin. All our sins from the past, present, and future were paid for on Calvary. The sins from “nice” people were paid for as well as from “evil” people, even when none of them deserved to be forgiven. My sins were included.
Mostly, I realized how He already paid for every one of the sins done to me. Jesus loved each person who sinned against me, and He died for each one no matter how awful their sins were.
Forgiving my dad was so miraculously wonderful I did something I never thought I would do in a thousand years. I couldn’t wait to go through the whole process again for my mother—to actually forgive her.
With Steve’s help, I remembered that no one had ever loved my mother. Not even her sisters and brother. I could begin to see past her cruelty and control and just care about her heart. She couldn’t love me if she had never experienced love herself. My heart softened, and I began to understand and accept her faults. This was easier since I had just been closely examining my own massive failures as a mom.
Just as for my father, I allowed Steve to lead me in a prayer to forgive my mother from my heart. I just repeated his words out loud from my heart. This prayer was a little different, though:
Jesus, I just want to forgive my mom for everything. I don’t want her to have to pay for her sins done to me. Will you take back the strongholds in my heart that I gave to the enemy through my anger, bitterness, and hate? I give those strongholds to you now for your control. Please fill my heart with your presence, your love, and your gentleness. Please forgive me for hating her and for being angry and bitter toward her all these years.
I noticed after I prayed these two prayers that I could breathe more deeply. I always felt like there was a rock in my heart or a heavy pressure on my chest. It is hard to explain, but it was a hard, heavy lump and at times it was painful. Right after praying, I couldn’t feel it at all. It felt wonderful. It felt like Jesus had just cut off and removed a large piece of barbed wire that had been wrapped tightly around my chest, and I could breathe.
Have you ever watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey playing the Grinch? I love the scene when he falls on the ground and cries, “What’s happening to me?” The Grinch’s heart is feeling, and you can see it growing and beating. He says, “My eyes are leaking!”
That is exactly what it felt like to me. I know it’s true when the Bible says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26).
Reflections: Chapter 3
In “My Story,” I made this statement: “Jesus loved each person who sinned against me, and he died for each one no matter how awful their sins were.”
“No matter how awful the sins?” you might be asking. Perhaps, someone did something to you so heinous that it is almost impossible to believe Jesus would want you to forgive them. Consider this—Jesus died on the cross for every sin and for every sinner. Does that include only minor sinners like liars, thieves, and prostitutes, but not adulterers, kidnappers, rapists, and murderers? No. Jesus died for every sin no matter how awful it was or is. He gave His life even for murderers.
In Jerusalem, many people in the crowd who surrounded the cross wanted Jesus to die. Yet even while they were in the act of murdering Him, he cried, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
Make it personal as I repeat my statement above. Jesus loved each person who sinned against me, and He died for each and every person no matter how awful their sins were against me. Does Jesus want you to follow His example and forgive every person? Even if that person beat and raped you? Even if that person murdered your child? What is the sin in your life that is so difficult to forgive?
Why don’t you ask Him? Jesus, do you want me to forgive the person who did that to me?
For myself, I was realizing how damaging it was to me and to my family to hold bitterness and hate against anyone for any reason, when Jesus had already paid the ultimate price for their sins and for mine on Calvary. My heart conformed to Christ’s example of forgiveness when I submitted my will to Him, saying, God, I will forgive anything You reveal to me in my heart from my past. I will forgive any wrong done to me today or tomorrow that I might have a heart that belongs completely to You.
I didn’t want anything in return for forgiving my dad, but I got everything when I forgave—I got my life back. I released a ton of bitterness and anger. I chose to forgive, but Jesus set me free of the hold the enemy had on my heart.
Through my traumatic experience at age eight, I had given the enemy ground in my heart. Through the years, it grew into a large stronghold due to my anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness. When I transferred my focus from my pain to caring about my father, Jesus was able to transform me. I allowed Him to lead me into my heart, where I could obey Christ and forgive my father. I asked Jesus to take back the stronghold from the enemy’s control and gave that area of my heart back to Jesus for His control. It felt wonderful. Then, I asked Jesus to fill that same area with His peace and His love.
All those years, an emotionally damaged child hid inside of me, just waiting for someone to care about her and help her heal her heart. I know that sounds strange, but my emotions were cut off when I was eight. I needed to let Jesus lovingly journey with me to the source of my pain as in “The Accident” and lead me emotionally back to my painful past to care about a frightened little girl. Together, the emotionally traumatized little girl inside of me and I, the adult, forgave my father. I asked God to forgive me for my bitterness and hate toward my dad.
At camp that night, Steve drew two vertical lines on a sheet, making three columns. He titled the left column, “Who hurt you?” the middle column, “What did he do?” and the right column, “How did it make you feel?” He filled out this paper for me, recording my answers as I cried and shared.
I was able to remain in my heart while I forgave my parents because Steve wrote my responses and feelings in the columns as he asked me questions. Steve did the thinking, organizing, and leading, allowing me to just stay in my heart without having to think—I just kept feeling.
Once I reconnected with my heart and forgave my parents, my emotions—my feelings—sprang back to life. My concern was focused on my parents, and I didn’t think about what it would cost me. The result was that my life and attitudes were changed from the inside out. God began to transform me. My relationship with my mother was renewed, and I felt love for her for the first time. This was a miracle!
Notice that I didn’t have to go hash it out with my mother. I didn’t have to go tell her I finally forgave her and stir up old feelings. I just forgave her, nothing more. Nothing left to do, except just love her right where she was at.
After forgiving, I needed to ask Jesus to take back the stronghold (some places in the Bible refer to it as “ground”) that I gave to the enemy when I was eight. Romans 7:17-21 says that I sin because of sin living in me. A stronghold was established in my heart the night my dad spanked me because I couldn’t tell time. I gave the enemy ground through my fear and anger, and, through my sin of unforgiveness, it grew into bitterness and hate. Through the years, through this growing stronghold, I gave the enemy more and more power to influence me.
Through this same stronghold, the enemy fed me convincing lies that discouraged me and lowered my self-esteem. I didn’t know this for over forty years, but that didn’t mean the stronghold didn’t exist—it did! There was ample evidence in my life that I had strongholds and that the enemy was influencing me through them. Perhaps, if we take a closer look at this evidence, it might help you understand how to look for clues to find strongholds in your life.
1. Whenever two or three people tried to talk to me at once, demanding help or an answer, I would start screaming, “Everyone just shut up! I can’t do this!” I felt pressured, like I was being put in an impossible situation and being set up for failure. There was so much pressure that I wouldn’t even try to answer anyone. I would withdraw and shut down. Do you ever withdraw and shut down? What causes you to do that?
2. I felt very stupid. I couldn’t read in public. Although I was an adult, reading the Bible out loud caused me to be so nervous I would lose my place, stutter over simple words, and shake like a leaf after reading even one scripture. I went out of my way to avoid this torture by conveniently forgetting my reading glasses or not bringing my Bible with me to church. When I would get trapped into reading, I asked Steve to read for me. Negative thoughts convinced me that I was stupid, and I was scared to death someone would find out.
3. I was afraid of getting into trouble. I felt a pain in my chest for no clear reason other than I felt like I was in trouble. For thirty-three years, I was terrified of policemen. If I saw one within two hundred yards, I would pull my car into some stranger’s driveway or turn at the next corner to hide. I watched constantly for them.
4. Whenever someone yelled at me close to my face like my father, I felt instant rage. No one ever did this but Adam, thank goodness. My reaction was swift and violent. I would throw him against the wall and yell in his face, “No one is ever going to talk to me like that again!” while slugging his arm until blood vessels broke in my hand. No matter how many times I asked Adam for forgiveness or repented of this ballistic, sinful behavior, it would happen again and again. I was abusing Adam emotionally and physically. I desperately wanted to stop doing this, but I couldn’t.
5. I couldn’t handle a lot of noise. I felt confused—like I wasn’t in control and something bad was going to happen. Arguing and yelling from my teenage boys would send me to my room to crawl under my covers and curl into a fetal position, covering my ears with my hands. Often I would just hide in my closet to get away. Also, while driving the car, the stress of noise and chaos would often trigger my anger, resulting in screaming matches.
Boy, was I sick or what? I describe these evidences as clues. These clues can be referred to as ROCKs (Reacting Off the Chart Kicks) or ROCKing. Often, when someone Reacts Off the Chart, someone gets “kicked” in the teeth. At least, it feels that way! To ROCK is a handy way of saying it.
Every one of these clues—consequences of sin done to me—was directly linked to the night my dad spanked me for not knowing how to tell time. My cultivated responses (my flesh patterns) enabled me to cope, survive, or to fight back. These five reactions on my part were not normal, nor were they godly reactions. They were off the charts. A purpose of this book is to help others because I believe almost everyone has strongholds, and they ROCK because of them.
When Steve or I ROCK, I’ve learned that it’s much more productive to start looking to find the core issue instead of initiating a fight. Great things can happen in our marital relationship when we care about the other person’s heart and look for core issues. Looking past the offense and caring about another person’s heart causes that individual to feel loved. When people feel loved, they are in a place where they can examine their behavior and allow God to work on their core issues. It is much easier to respond in the right way when someone is caring about you than when they are yelling things like, “What is wrong with you?” or “You’re crazy!” or “You’re out of control!”
The following is a drawing of what my heart looked like. The black areas represent the strongholds that the enemy used to influence my life and destroy my relationships.
Each stronghold has tentacles that extend to the edge of my heart. If you have hidden pain, your heart may look a lot like mine. Whenever someone comes too close to the hidden pain, our flesh will react. We aren’t just reacting to the present moment, but we react based on a particular stronghold in our heart, caused by accumulated pain through the years. That is why our reaction is so “off the chart.”
When we react, we immediately revert back to an old, familiar flesh patterns that we have practiced our whole life. The Bible refers to these flesh patterns as walking in “the flesh” (Rom. 8:8, 7:18, 8:5). Regardless of whether we withdraw, gossip, slander, yell, give the silent treatment, shut down, hit, or over control (the list goes on and on)—these reactions are all sins. These behaviors are done independently, apart from God. God wants us to need Him and wants us to walk in the Spirit—“More of Him and less of us.” Independent behavior apart from God can look successful and productive, or it can look harmful and evil. Either way, it is still a sin.
My flesh pattern with Adam, our youngest, was screaming, hitting, dealing out unfair punishment, and not listening to him.
My flesh patterns with Adam’s older brother, Dan, actually looked pretty good. I organized (manipulated) him toward his Boy Scout goals as I helped him become a Life Scout. I was very involved and controlled him in his school homework and in his music lessons. By applying guilt, I encouraged him to practice his viola and harmonica.
These things may have looked good to the outside world, but Dan felt dominated and controlled. The enemy, the roaring lion, was winning, and I was serving up my sons to him on a silver platter.
Neither one of my sons felt loved by me. While counseling other couples, I’ve noticed that this is the one common denominator of every family with problems. Someone does not feel loved. Relational problems stem from that common denominator. My sons were both angry and hated me. Adam expressed his anger outwardly, while Dan stored up his anger inside where it festered. Dan not only hated me, but he also hated himself for allowing this repetitive cycle to repeat itself over and over.
I call this a “circle of destruction.” Dan would shut down, becoming unorganized in his goals, his homework, and taking care of his room, so I would jump in and push and control more. This triggered his flesh pattern of self-hate and shut him down even more.
The absence of love triggers sinful flesh patterns, resulting in major negative consequences. Love restores and deepens relationships. If we are not able to love in a way that our family feels our love, then something must be broken in our heart.
Courageous Hearts: Chapter 3
A Study of the Heart
To understand what might be broken or different about our heart, let’s examine a few scriptures about the heart. The Bible contains over nine hundred verses pertaining to the heart. In my study, I was amazed at how many repeat, “with all my heart and all my soul.”
Write the central thought about our heart from each of these verses:
Psalms 17:10, 19:14, 25:17, 27:14, 73:21-22, 86:11, and 139:23.
Proverbs 2:10, 3:5, 4:23, 14:10, 14:13, and 15:13.
Ecclesiastes 10:2 and 11:10, Jeremiah 24:7, Ezekiel 11:19, and Romans 6:17 and 8:27.
These verses indicate that we have the ability to close off our unfeeling hearts and harbor bitterness and unforgiveness. Or we can obey, love, and serve God with all of our heart and with all of our soul. We should guard our soul from impure thoughts and corruption and evil deeds. We are in charge of our hearts. A bitter, hardened heart cannot love like Christ loved us.
There are many great examples in the Bible that show how our actions are influenced by the condition of our heart.
Starting in Genesis 24, read the story of Isaac and Rebekah.
1. Look for generational sins of lying and deceit passed down from Isaac’s father, Abraham. Are these sins also present in Isaac’s family?
2. Look for favoritism shown to one child over the other. How was Jacob and Esau’s relationship affected because of favoritism?
3. How does Rebekah use flesh patterns of control and manipulation to deceive? What does that cost her?
4. How did favoritism and trickery affect Esau? Look for the rebellion in Esau in Genesis 28:6-9 and chapter 29.
Jacob marries Leah and Rachel and is then deceived by Rebekah’s brother, Laban.
This story clearly shows generational sins being passed down through succeeding generations. Family sins of lies, manipulation, favoritism, and deceit cause others to react, using their flesh patterns, which then cause division and isolation in family relationships. From Abraham to Jacob and beyond, flesh patterns are used to survive, react, or get what each person wants.
When we don’t allow God to transform us to be like Christ, we allow Satan to influence us through our hidden pain, generational sin, and our own sin. We try to solve our problems and survive by using our own flesh patterns, and like Abraham and Jacob, these will negatively affect and be repetitive patterns in succeeding generations.
Look at the words you recorded in your notebook to describe your family. Ask Jesus to help you to be courageous and honest with yourself as you do this assignment.
1. Highlight each word used to describe your mother, father, siblings, grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, and aunts. Look for words like gentle, kind, harsh, mean, unforgiving, angry, control, etc.
2. Circle each word that you highlighted that also describes yourself. Do you see similarities between earlier generations and yourself?
3. Look at words describing them. Do you go overboard doing the opposite (e.g. If you were raised in a poor home, do you now spend lots of money buying anything you want regardless if you can afford it or not?)?
When we look closely at evidence like this, we can see our own shortcomings. We can finally admit that our efforts have failed and that we can’t be like Jesus in our own strength. When we see this and allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of our own sin, then we can take the next step and allow Jesus to transform us.
Pride, shame, embarrassment, fear, and negative thought patterns—tools of the enemy—lead us astray to where we refuse to admit our problems and failures. Jesus wants you to realize that you can’t live the Christian life unless the Holy Spirit empowers you to live it. And He won’t force Himself into those areas of your heart where the enemy is in control through strongholds.
Can you pray this prayer from your heart?
Holy Spirit, will you break through my pride and convict me of my sins? Help me to face my failures and confess them to you. Will you help me, Lord, to break down my resistance and obey you in everything? Please continue to speak to my heart. Amen.
“I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame” (Ps. 34:4-5).