In the last Nugget I talked about how other people can exert pressure on us and try to manipulate us into a stronghold for their own gratification or feelings of inadequacy. Those situations are hard to deal with but require perseverance and strength of character in order to turn yours and their situations around. But be encouraged it is possible as the story I shared with you last week indicates. Since then I have had a number of you share your stories and tell me what I wrote last week was sooo helpful. That is wonderful news; I am pleased. After all that is why I take the time to write these Nuggets on Strongholds; so many can find release. I have had a number of pastors write to me and share how these Nuggets are helping people in their congregations or networks as well. Given the fact I send these Nuggets to close to 1,000 people it gives me immense satisfaction to see how they are being used. Write and tell me your story too. You have time now as Covid19 is shutting things down on us. I am about to launch Deeper Bible 101 Online rather prematurely, but find it necessary because the present class that has grown to 80 plus is going to be harder to run as a gathering of that number. I am currently working through what we can do to make the online course work at short notice.
I want to speak (write) briefly on those who manipulate us for their own motives similar to what my father used to do to my mother and me. But then I will move on to further address the matter of our own issues related to strongholds and how the enemy of our souls seeks to use them against us. Many people who seek to keep others trapped in subservience or strongholds, do so because of their own inadequacies. I realized that fact about my father for the first time in the Jack Winter session. The same is true of those of you who might be in an abusive relationship. My father also tried that if all else didn’t work. He would get violent and threatening as I described to the woman in the last story I shared. What fascinated me then and still fascinates me now, is that my father would move from violent threats to crying to get his own way in an instant. Those two approaches are so diametrically opposed yet compatible in the mind of an abuser. I have seen or heard of that time and time again in the lives of others. Those who perpetrate domestic abuse need help just as much as those who harbour more evil intent behind their actions. Each one needs to be called out and exposed. The sin or wrong doing needs to be addressed. When it is brought to the light either by addressing the issue with the perpetrator or reporting the perpetrator to the authorities then it can be dealt with. Bullies always need to be called to account.
Now let’s turn to the strongholds that are within us but we just don’t recognize them. The issue is how to recognize the behaviour or response, reaction that is within us which is driven by a stronghold. These are often hard to spot because they are so much a part of our automatic or even autonomic reactions that we just conclude “that is just how we are”. Certain reactions are so ingrained within us that we don’t know why we do those things. I have told you already about my reactions to fixing things around the home, which stem from years of subliminal and not so subliminal messages that lodged in my head – that I was useless and couldn’t do that. In point of fact it was not my inadequacy that was the cause; it was my father’s inadequacy and his lack of patience to be able to teach me in a meaningful way that was at the heart of his reactions.
There are many related issues which come to mind as I write that prompt me to write further Nuggets on such matters. I don’t know when this series of Nuggets will come to an end given the new thoughts which come to mind. People writing to me about their situations prompt me to open up new areas to address as well. I will just allow the pot to keep simmering as I work my way through the labyrinth of Strongholds. They are everywhere. How then do we identify them? My simple, yet complex answer to that is through the help of the Holy Spirit of God. I told you in my sermon way back on January 26th (our wedding anniversary) that we need to seek help to expose the truth behind what we do or say. The only help that I know of, which can take us behind the scenes of the strongholds developed in our lives without us being aware of the causes, is the help that the God who made us can give us. As I have prayed and sought God’s help or as I have been in meetings or gatherings where asking God to shine His light on the dark places in my life has been in focus, God has done exactly that. Now I want to expand on the story I used in my sermon with Tania’s permission. I have let Tania see what I am writing for her approval, before sending it to you.
That day in Jakarta, the prayer time with the couple from John Regier’s Caring for the Heart Ministries had been instrumental in exposing a deep-seated stronghold over Tania which stemmed from her first year of life in the cot! That is mind blowing. God can take you back to events in your past that are unbelievably beyond comprehension. He can shine His light on events that are not normally in human memories. Our God is far and above, more than anything we can imagine, able to expose that which is at the heart of your issues. All you have to do is let Him.
[I find this amazing as I write this. It has the same impact that it had on me on the day it happened. There was more that came from it. But what I also find amazing is God’s timing in all of this. Because today as I write this, I have Tania in the house with me (of course) but I also have her mum staying with us. God’s timing is perfection itself. So before I send this Nugget I will have it checked and approved by two of the major players in the story.]