IN ORDER TO CO-OPERATE FULLY IN OUR HEALING IT HELPS TO KNOW HOW WE WERE DESIGNED TO FUNCTION IN SPIRIT-TO-SPIRIT HARMONY WITH OUR FATHER.
Imagine yourself as a vertical pipe with the Water of Life thundering through, bringing life.
A pure unblocked channel for the love of the Father flowing through you and beyond.
Adam and Eve were such channels before the Fall.
We are created with 3 functioning parts:
firstly our spirit;
secondly,our soul – our inner story, comprised of our thinking, feelings and choices;
and thirdly, the body our physical presence.
In the Garden Eden our spirit was uppermost,
connected to and aligned to the will and purpose of the Father
This meant our soul, our inner story, was of one mind with the Father and so our actions and choices and feelings were all pure and good.
This was seen in the bodily area as Adam & Eve walked out Godly living in harmony with the Father.
However, as a result of the Fall there was a fundamental shift. The design of mankind was literally turned on its head.
Self and worldly considerations came to the surface
and the spiritual life of man became sidelined and shrunk.
WE were no longer open channels but more cone shaped –
As Adam & Eve are put out of Eden
God made it clear that physical effort
was going to be required just to survive
selfishness, ego and bodily needs were now
uppermost and would be our priority.
In a world of fractured relationships
each individual was driven to get their own needs met.
Physical living became pressing and insistent in its perceived urgency.
I need to trample over others so I do not lose out. Experiences, greed and selfishness meant that beliefs,
feelings and choices were very far from godly
and thus the spiritual life was squeezed to insignificance as I play God in my life. Here is the death the Father spoke of in Genesis.
Cut off from the waterfall of life this is all about need, emptiness and pain.
Lets just look at these three areas of body, soul and spirit again .
OUR PHYSICAL LIFE HAS 2 ELEMENTS :
We have a bodily form and we physically walk through the days of our life with events and experiences shaping us.
Firstly, we have a story. It is made up of day to day living, the triumphs and disasters, the relationships and the circumstances
we each have enjoyed or endured.
And secondly we each have a shape to fill,
an image we were created to be, with defined borders, a space to occupy,
that as we come to maturity is a sacred space where the Holy Spirit dwells.
However, in the fallen world as we travel that image is buffeted
and attacked from all sides, we become invaded and our borders can break down. There are many forms of abuse - emotional, psychological, physical and sexual and all of them are invasions across our borders.
Our lives graphically expose the long lasting effects of such incursions. The truth is that none of us can get through life without damage whether we are aware of it or not.
THEN OUR SOUL IS OUR INNER STORY
fed by the outward and physical experience of our lives,
where we translate what happenings to us into our beliefs,
about ourselves and the world.
These lay down our expectations, our attitudes, our prejudices and our fears, which in turn affect our choice of action and behaviours
and thus our consequent feelings.
Then we have our SPIRITUAL BEING – our IDENTITY We use the evidence of our experience to wrap ourselves
in a sense of identity that will influence our destiny. Without inner transformation this identity is rarely who God created us to be
but is heavily influenced by who we think the world says we are.
So, who am I? What sustains me? What fills me and inspires me?
Do I believe what the world says about us me
or do I believe what God says?
Let’s REMEMBER GOD's INTENTION and best plan WAS FOR US TO GET OUR NEEDS MET IN HIM
IN THE WATERFALL, TRUSTING GOD, AND CONTINUALLY FILLED WITH HIS LOVE, OUR IDENTITY SECURE IN WHO HE SAYS WE ARE, WE WOULD KNOW THAT:
We are loved and we belong
We have value and worth
Our lives have meaning and purpose.
HOWEVER, THE INDEPENDENT LIFE of the FALLEN world is full of striving and emptiness.
WHETHER WE ARE AWARE OF IT OR NOT,
ALL OF US HAVE A WELL OF PAIN WITHIN US.
LET’S THINK ABOUT FAMILIES
God’s design was for us to be in families,
with each partner drawing from their intimate relationship
with the Father in the Waterfall.
The constant, overwhelming, infilling of love
was to fuel parents’ earthly relationships
and to pour into and fill the love-tanks of their children.
Our God has a father’s heart and a mother’s heart
for both give different aspects of love to us.
This is mirrored in the earthly family,
as fathers and mothers together give their children the same characteristics, which are essential to health, development and wellbeing.
A child should receive:
From the love of a father: From the love of a mother unconditional acceptance unconditional acceptance unconditional love unconditional love
security nurture
significance comfort
We are designed to have parents who, having a surfeit of love for each other, pour that love into their children, filling their hearts and love tanks to overflowing. The love of a father helps us build a clear sense of identity,
to know our worth, in a safe and welcoming place.
The love of the mother connects us to the place of belonging and holding.
This models the love of God to our children until they are old enough
to develop their own relationship with the Father in the Waterfall.
We are open to LIFE’ HURTS from birth
Babies come into a world for which they are not prepared
Babies are created to be 100% loved.
When life does not deliver absolute love and how can it
for no parent is undamaged and the circumstances of life are less than perfect. Babies notice the lapses, they want to know Am I safe ? Can I trust big people? IN THE FIRST 18 MONTHS of our lives we will have decided whether our response through life will be based on TRUST or mistrust.
Before the toddler is 3 years old shame and self-doubt can be cemented into the belief system if relationships or circumstances
deliver uncertainty or confusion.
I picked up shame being hospitalized for 6 weeks at 2 with a fractured skull
in an era when parents were not allowed to stay with their child.
Why would they leave me?
It could only be because I was unloveable and they could not stand my pain. Those 2 beliefs unbeknown to me framed my life for 50 years before they were rectified.
When unsure, the little person will always believe
there is something wrong with them, as they can only judge subjectively. Overwhelmingly we pick up negative beliefs and they will underpin
the way we frame our world view until our thinking is changed.
SHAME is one of the most damaging negative beliefs that most of us will picked up.
Once Shame has been laid down in our belief system during our early childhood we will add to it as the years go by.
LET’s see the sort of consequences it has on our inner life
We can become damaged from such things as
a lack of consistent parenting, the circumstances in early years,
our family culture, deprivation of all kinds, being different,
and being shamed by authority figures.
I well remember at the age of 5 not having the obligatory handkerchief,
to wave at morning assembly and the damning words of the teacher.
What sort of beliefs does this mean we hold about ourselves? Typically: I am a mistake, I’m bad, I’m a loser, I’m less than everyone else, No-one can like me, I am unloveable, I will be rejected, I cannot get it right and If I am in control I will be safe.
Common issues: I can be driven but never satisfied, feeling I never make the grade I can be critical and feel better when putting others down
but I can be crushed by criticism
I have no sense of belonging, so have a fear of close relationships,
I fear being wrong, so making decisions is difficult
There are Consequences to shame:
we may live with a sense of abandonment and rejection,
we may find the need to numb the pain or fill emptiness with food ,sex or drugs we may exhibit victim behaviours, lacking boundaries or being a people pleaser,
we may be performance orientated, be judgemental of others
and have undealt with anger and bitterness issues. .
For most of us dealing with shame is a life’s work.
There are many ways we are damaged and we go through life as icebergs with so much beneath the surface that dictates how we experience life.
What is seen by others above the waterline
is our behaviour, moods, body language and demeanour
but below the surface there is our history and circumstances
with the traumas, hurts and illnesses, we have suffered.
Our schooling, occupation, the mistakes we have made,
our attitudes, prejudices, the buried emotions,
resentments and unconscious drivers
Being driven by hurt and wounds is not what God created us for
But we are learning
We can work with God as He seeks to restore us.
We are going to look at the tools that the Holy Spirit
has given us to work with Him in His ministry as He transforms us, back to God’s best.
DRAWING THE TIMELINE OF YOUR JOURNEY
The following exercise is illuminating. It is helpful to review our journey and so be able to reflect on the links and patterns of our lives
for we will find insights here to light our onward path .
It also has great value when exploring an area of difficulty.
It is a revelation to see the cyclical patterns of behaviour through life and can provide specific clues through the events that come to mind
that enlighten the area being explored.
In our day-to-day walk through life every incident,
every loss, every high and low point is significant
because it feeds our inner world.
It sets the way we characterise our life whether as a tragedy, a penal sentence,
an endurance race, a fantasy, a comedy or a mystery.
Take a risk. Open yourself up to the Holy Spirit.
Allow God to show you if He wants to do some work in you right now. Have courage; what God starts He will finish.
Drawing a timeline helps every time God embarks on a new work in you
for it allows the Holy Spirit to throw up from your unconscious events
He wants you to consider.
Draw a line across the page left to right, from birth to now.
Taking no longer that 40 minutes plot the events that come into your mind
in chronological order. Left to right.
Place positive events above the line and negative events below the line. Join the dots in chronological order like a medical chart.
Sit and Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you anything He wants you to see about your story.Look for recurring patterns, links and influences. Recording your findings can be very helpful.
Listen to God, Don’t go digging. Hold lightly and we will find this useful as we advance further. Any Questions ask the Holy Spirit.
Next episode we will consider how a Spider Diagram can help bring enlightenment.
