Wounds from the past often get contaminated by false beliefs about God. This is heart breaking to see, especially when the person was raised in a Christian environment. You would think that knowing God and Jesus would help a person heal, and not be a source of further infection. Yet, I see this all the time at the Mission where I work with people coming off years on the streets chasing their addictions and being throttled by them. Peel back the surface and wrong thoughts about God bubble up.
Rick Joyner points out that the Bible calls the Enemy, Beelzebub, which means “Lord of the Flies.” Flies seek out wounds, infecting them with germs and infesting them with their larvae. In this spiritual parallel flies are like the lies the Father of Lies plants in our wounds, lies like “See, no one cares about you. You’re worthless. You’ll never amount to anything. You’ll never get over this.” And on and on. Our wounds need a thorough scrubbing with the truths of God!
But when you’re young and all you know is that God and Jesus are somehow in charge of everything, you simply don’t have enough Biblical understanding to make good sense of painful events. God’s ways are hard enough to understand even for adults! Unless the parental covering is unusually alert, this gives the evil one tremendous opportunities “to devour” the openness and innocence of childhood.
What set me off this week was a question asked in pain and fear by one of our men: “Do you think God wants me to stay stuck with my addiction? Does He really have good things planned for me?” I said “Of course He has good plans!” and shared scriptures to show that God doesn’t do evil or plan evil for anyone. But what he said next floored me: “Well, you know the Bible says that God planned for Jesus to be killed. Maybe He’s made plans for me like that.”
I had the feeling that I was looking at a deep root of darkness. It was actually a good question, but not having the right answer for it, his heart was poisoned against believing that he too could have a “future and a hope.” What’s more, I submit to you, that this is the kind of infection only a Christian can experience. Who else compares their life to Jesus? Most of the time this is EXACTLY the right way to go. It’s called the Imitation of Christ, seeking to live by following His example. In this case it had the opposite effect. Why?
If God were to plan evil to happen to us against our knowledge or consent that would make Him evil, untrustworthy, and therefore Someone to run from. This is what our student had believed and therefore was doing. Yet, God did plan evil against His own Son. How was that not evil? Here is where Jesus is completely unlike us. He had a life with God before coming to earth. He freely consented to be the Lamb that would be slain from before the foundation of the world. God’s plans were also His plans. He came here knowing and desiring that the evil of the cross would be done to Him—for our sake.
Me? I had no choice in coming here, so I’m glad to know that the One who sent me has nothing but good plans in Mind!
For more on emotional mending see Recovery from Abuse at our website.
About the Author: Steve Evans
For over a decade Steve Evans and Healing Streams have been helping people recover inner peace and freedom. Find out how to gain mastery over negative emotions and live with childlike freedom of spirit by taking his completely free "eCourse for Healing" at healingstreamsusa.org. Get started now!
