June 4, 2024 • 22 mins
Have you ever felt disillusioned by the very institutions meant to guide your spiritual growth? Join me, Lionel, as I recount my personal battle with depression and the unexpected challenges I faced in church leadership from 2016 to 2017. During a candid recording in my car, I share how a recent prayer session revealed that unresolved wounds from my past were impeding my spiritual progress. This episode offers a heartfelt exploration of my journey, filled with insights for anyone grappling with spiritual struggles or feeling let down by their faith community. Tune in for a raw and honest conversation about overcoming suffering and embracing a path of healing and growth. #depression #spiritualrenewal
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're never going to dive deep into your spiritual
journey until you are healedfrom past wounds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said it isnot the length of life, but it
is about the depth of life.
Welcome to the Words to Changepodcast.
(00:21):
This is Lionel, your host, andwe're gonna talk about
depression and spiritualawakening.
Man, I'm just going to tell youright up front today we have an
interesting episode.
I'm going to do this sort ofdifferent from what I typically
do, but either have a guest onthe podcast or share some things
(00:42):
with you from my heart, but butI I'm sharing, uh, my personal
journey with and struggle as I'mtrying to figure out my purpose
and place, using my gift,talents and abilities.
Man, this was probably back in2016, 2017, and I was having
having an immense amount ofspiritual struggle, being in
(01:05):
church, leadership and workingwith a lot of people who I
really, really enjoyed workingwith.
But I saw another side ofministry that shocked me, that I
was not aware of and I'd neverbeen in a place like that before
, and it had a tremendous impacton my life.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, Ireflected upon this experience
(01:27):
and doing prayer.
Actually, I was driving in mycar and just had a deep sense of
I wanted to be closer to God.
I wasn't really satisfied withmy spiritual discipline.
My prayer life was OK, but itdefinitely could be better.
My Bible reading was okay, butI felt like I, as a teacher and
a person who uses the scripturesas a resource to empower you,
(01:49):
my listener I wanted to sharemore, I wanted to do more, but
then I couldn't figure out why Iwas feeling this deep sense of
needing to do and be and feelmore, and then the spirit began
to speak to me about my past andman.
The revelation that camethrough that process was
absolutely profound.
(02:10):
That is still having an impacton me today.
This was recorded in my carabout two weeks ago, and so this
was recorded.
I recorded this, and so I doapologize the audio is not the
best.
As you listen, you definitelycan hear cars passing in the
background and I trust thatyou'll look past that because
you still be able to hear it butit won't be as sound quality to
(02:33):
what you're used to on thepodcast, and so I want you to
listen till the end, becausethere is definitely nuggets and
truths of gold that anyone who'shad a struggle in church or
perhaps you struggle in yourspiritual life, or you had a
deep moment of the soul, ormaybe someone hurt you in church
.
You will benefit from this, asI share what God spoke to me
(02:55):
about how I needed to get beyondthat.
Then, at the end of the so herewe go.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor.
That's not my business.
I don't want to rule or conqueranyone.
I should like to help everyoneif possible Jew, gentile, black,
man, white we all want to helpone another.
Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other'shappiness, not by each other's
misery.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
So I've been struggling deeply with my
personal spiritual disciplinesand it agitated me because I'm
unable to maintain thosedisciplines which, for me, would
be very important to how Ifunction as a husband, as a
(03:50):
father, as a person.
How I go through the world,accomplishing my daily tasks,
empathetic, driven, focused onthe day in front of me, is
affected deeply by my spiritualdisciplines and I have been very
(04:14):
undisciplined about it and itfrustrated me and it stunted my
spiritual growth.
What I mean by stunted myspiritual growth?
It didn't allow me to hear thevoice of God the way that I'm
accustomed to.
And that also agitated mebecause I'm in a business and my
(04:36):
calling is to help people, andI do.
I help people through spiritualgrowth, bible studies,
counseling, teaching, preaching.
So not being able to have thedivine inspiring moments is not
only detrimental to mycompleting daily tasks and being
(04:59):
in a mental disposition whereI'm happy and in a mental
disposition where I'm happy andsatisfied with myself, but not
having a passionate spiritualdevelopment program and process,
it really interferes with mycalling and my purpose that I
(05:23):
feel while I was created to liveand be and move on earth.
And so, with these things inmind, the Spirit told me, you're
never going to dive deep intoyour spiritual journey until you
(05:43):
are healed from past wounds.
And when that word came to me,it hit me to the core of my
being because I never imaginedthat my lack of spiritual
disciplines and my inconsistencywas directly related to From
past spiritual trauma, frombeing a church pastor, a church
(06:10):
planner, a church leader and thevarious interactions I had a
very tough time in my life thatcaused me to question if I was
gifted enough, talented enough,was I kidding myself?
Enough talented enough?
Talented enough?
Was I kidding myself?
(06:30):
I went through a phase in mylife, for instance in my
ministry, where everything Itried at least a great majority
of things that I tried a lot ofthem worked, but some of them
didn't, and I spent many, manyyears.
I spent many, many yearstraining and in ministry and
(06:58):
being educated in ministry,giving time, effort, energy and
money, lots of investment,training in ministry, only to
then move from that traininginto the real world of ministry
and see my efforts not producethe results.
I wanted, not only that, tobecome disillusioned about how
(07:24):
success or what I deem afruitful ministry was
accomplished.
I thought that mypresuppositions were that
fruitful ministry wasaccomplished by going to school,
being educated, learning how topastor, learning how to care
for people, learning how tointerpret scripture, teach
(07:46):
scripture, guide people, guidepeople through this process,
only to get behind the scenes ofministry, of big ministry, and
realize that people that youadmire don't study the Bible.
It's not that they didn't seethe Bible as important, but they
(08:07):
didn't take it as serious as Idid and I thought I was trained
that your personal time with Godand teaching and spending,
spending the time and disciplinestudying scripture and learning
and going from that place ofintimacy with God, being a very,
very in knowledge of the wordof God and how to teach it,
(08:28):
being the engine by which yourministry flourish To see that
people didn't study scripture orbarely read it, couldn't
articulate, didn't have any typeof creativity, but take other
people's sermons and use thatand see their ministries grow
and flourish and money come in.
And you saw differentpersonalities in ministry that
(08:53):
did not necessarily representwhat you thought would be a man
or woman of God and thatconfused me.
It confused me because peoplethat I admired were the ones who
made these decisions or actedthis way or gave people audience
(09:13):
who didn't work as hard, wasn'tas compassionate or empathetic,
wasn't concerned about studyingthe scripture, but more
concerned about at least in myestimation what other people,
what other ministries are doing,and basically copy and pasting,
(09:35):
without any ingenuity, becauseI came from a background where
your time you spent with God,that was the main driving force
(09:55):
for your creativity.
But in this circumstance Istarted to see that it was not
so much the creative spark ofGod but man's scientific way of
doing ministry and then applyingGod or superimposing God on top
of it, that it didn't originateit from God but it originated
from someone else's ideas thathad no context to that
(10:20):
particular locale of ministrybut was co-opted from some
ministry somewhere in a totaldifferent state or a total
different world, and just cutpace to use for that particular
ministry.
And that was very traumatic forme and then, on top of that,
(10:41):
made me feel as if what I wasdoing did not matter, the gift,
talents and abilities that Ibrought to the table were not
good enough and that, my friends, that's what caused me to be
hurt, angry, overweight,frustrated and not knowing why.
(11:05):
Overweight, frustrated and notknowing why it caused me to not
like ministry, to questionwhether or not I even wanted to
be in ministry.
Maybe I had become delusionalabout my calling.
Maybe I thought I was goodenough and realized that you're
not good enough for the bigleagues.
People that I admired wereministry personalities,
(11:26):
conference personalities, whohad a tremendous impact, and
these are the people that Ilooked up to and had anticipate,
maybe not following their exactfootsteps, but I was definitely
on my way to having that kindof fruitful ministry.
I realized that this was notgoing to happen, not because I
(11:55):
said because the people thatinfluenced me or had influence
didn't never, never said to me Iwas good enough, but every
practice in every in their mindsI wasn't good enough.
In their minds it was onlythere for my color of my skin,
not because of the impact that Ihad.
I even felt set up sometimesthat I was given projects I was
working very hard and givenprojects that would never go
into succeed and decided thatyou know what it's time for me.
(12:22):
If this is what ministry isabout, I don't want to have
anything to do with it.
For me, if this is what ministryis about, I don't want to have
anything to do with it and thatmy friends sent me on a journey
of leaving the ministry notleaving church ministry, going
into becoming a militarychaplain, because I simply
wanted to care for people, Iwanted to teach people, I wanted
(12:45):
to help people.
I wanted to my ministry to bemarked by people's lives being
changed by what I had to offer.
And for me I was standing andteaching the Word of God,
teaching the Scripture.
So my gifts, talents andabilities did not match up with
what that church vision andministry was all about.
(13:07):
And I remember one of thesenior leaders of the church
said to me you understand thatyou work for these people.
And I was shocked because and Iremember one church leader
saying, you understand you workfor these people.
And his words perturbed me, hiswords caused me to reflect
(13:29):
deeply because I always feltthat I worked for God and that
any person who had any deepspiritual connection with God
would believe the same thing.
So I was introduced to a lot ofdifferent viewpoints about
ministry.
That was very unattractive tome and it's true I could have
(13:50):
been just in the wrong place atthe wrong time.
Helen Keller said that althoughthe world is full of suffering,
it is also full of overcomingthe overcoming of suffering,
overcoming of suffering.
And it wasn't to say that.
All of my experiences with thisorganization, this church, was
(14:13):
unhealthy, but it is to say thatI went through a ministerial
evolution that I was unfamiliarwith, I didn't understand and to
give talents and abilities thatI prioritized Were not welcome
(14:37):
or needed, or they were not seenas important, or they were
minimized or not givenopportunity to grow and flourish
and be mentored.
And these were presuppositionsI had in my mind before.
(14:58):
But behind the door of ministryand this is important for us
all to understand that not alleverything that glitter is gold,
as the old saying goes, and soyou never know what a thing is.
The grass is not always greeneron the other side.
But no matter what, as HelenKeller said, as we go through
(15:21):
suffering, we must also know howto, or learn to, overcome it.
And so, for one reason, this iswhat the Lord allowed me to go
through.
But Romans 8, 28 says God willcause all things to work out for
the good to those who love him,those who are called according
to his purpose.
(15:41):
So if you're going through thatexperience, you may have been
hurt by church.
That experience can be used toteach you something about life,
to give you the resources thatare necessary To put you in a
position to help people that arein your sphere of influence,
that God has strategicallyplaced in your path For you to
(16:04):
help them get through theirtrauma.
So when the Spirit said to meyou left ministry wounded and
you've never gotten over it saidto me you left ministry wounded
and you've never gotten over it, that you're never going to
experience the new blessings Godhas for you until you begin
healing.
And then I asked the spirit howdo I heal?
Because I want to.
I'm not, if you know me, I'mnot a.
(16:27):
I'm a pretty independent person, self-thinker, free thinker and
Ier and I don't like to rely onpeople.
Having your own being your ownman, being your own person,
walking with God, you ministerto people from the overflow of
your cup.
So I said Spirit will win.
(16:47):
And it's like the Spirit saidto me, you can't put a timetable
on grief.
(17:14):
So when I thought about theSpirit saying, well, you can't
make room for new blessingsuntil you heal from old wounds,
and I thought about that and Ithought well, I thought about
Jesus says the word blessing isbasically safety.
It's really a comprehensiveshelter experience.
It means safety in your entirelife.
Blessings is not just material,it's financial, spiritual,
mental, physical, it's allencompassing, it's sort of a
(17:38):
wholeness.
So Jesus said In my Father'shouse, in the Gospels in Matthew
I think, there are manymansions, there are many rooms,
that God has a place of safety,there's a room of safety for you
, there's a place where you'regoing to get to, that new place
(17:59):
of blessing, that room ofblessing, that house of blessing
.
But you can't get there untilyou've been healed by the healer
.
So I said well, I want to belike the blind man at the pool
of Saloon.
Can somebody just dip me in thepool to be healed?
And the Spirit said back to meyour healing is a lifelong
(18:20):
journey, it's a process.
What's more important aboutthat is I had to.
I'm judging my own, even now asI talk about it.
I'm judging my ownpresuppositions about blessing.
Why do you want to be blessedand why do you want to have
people?
No one wants to go through lifewithout, at least in my mind,
without helping someone andbeing a blessing, benefiting
(18:46):
others.
So it's a lifelong journey.
Healing is a lifelong journey.
So my encouragement to mylisteners is we're never going
to get to the place we need tobe and experience the new home,
the new room of blessings untilwe experience healing and
(19:06):
healing is a lifelong process,it may be we can consider what
are the things that we crave forwhen we want to experience
healing.
What are the things that wecrave for?
I'm still trying to work all ofthat out.
I'm not sure how cravings andhealing go hand in hand, but
(19:31):
when I want to feel blessed orexperience happiness, what?
What triggers come to mind andmake me feel like I don't
deserve that?
When I want to experiencehappiness, what triggers come to
mind and make me feel like Iwon't deserve that?
I don't know who this is for,but I can tell you that this is
the warts and all this.
These are the warts of my lifeexperience, things that I've
(19:54):
learned, been through.
I've been through many more, butthese are the things that I'm
still being healed, and perhapsyou are a person who's needing
healing yourself that God has aplace and a space for you and me
to be healed, and that we needto rely on the Lord and see it
as a journey, not rush thehealing process, but allow time
(20:17):
and chance to have its place,and maybe in the future, the
time will come when we begin toexperience that deep richness of
blessing.
There's nothing better thanhaving deep intimacy with God,
having a deep journey with God.
Because it's from that place,because it's a deep journey,
(20:39):
deep intimacy with God it's fromthat place comes blessings.
Not only blessings.
For me and maybe this is whatblessings mean it's the ability
to feed other people, to helpother people come alive again,
to give other people hope, tointroduce Christ to people and
(21:01):
see their lives be changed.
This, for me, is what blessingsare, and I will never be able
to help people get through, getinto their home of journey,
their room of journey, theirroom of blessing, until I heal
for my woman that my efforts arein vain until I do the hard
(21:24):
work of being healed.
Wow, such a deep moment ofreflection and I want to share
that with you because, as mylistener, as our community, I
want you to understand that, nomatter what you're going through
, no matter what you'reexperiencing in your life,
healing is a lifelong processand some of you who are
(21:45):
listening, you may beexperiencing depression or you
may be going through a very,very tough time.
I just want to let you knowyou're not alone, that there are
people who get it and there arepeople who are willing to walk
with you through the process.
If this message or if thiscontent helped you at all or it
gave you encouragement, send mea note, let me know, send me an
email.
It's down in the show notes.
(22:06):
You can see it right there,okay, so, hey, thanks once more
for being a part of this Wordfor Change podcast.
You guys, keep the faith, keephanging in there and remember
change begins with you.
Until next time, talk to yousoon.
Salute and I'm out.
Thank you.
You're never going to dive deep into your spiritual
journey until you are healedfrom past wounds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said it isnot the length of life, but it
is about the depth of life.
Welcome to the Words to Changepodcast.
(00:21):
This is Lionel, your host, andwe're gonna talk about
depression and spiritualawakening.
Man, I'm just going to tell youright up front today we have an
interesting episode.
I'm going to do this sort ofdifferent from what I typically
do, but either have a guest onthe podcast or share some things
(00:42):
with you from my heart, but butI I'm sharing, uh, my personal
journey with and struggle as I'mtrying to figure out my purpose
and place, using my gift,talents and abilities.
Man, this was probably back in2016, 2017, and I was having
having an immense amount ofspiritual struggle, being in
(01:05):
church, leadership and workingwith a lot of people who I
really, really enjoyed workingwith.
But I saw another side ofministry that shocked me, that I
was not aware of and I'd neverbeen in a place like that before
, and it had a tremendous impacton my life.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, Ireflected upon this experience
(01:27):
and doing prayer.
Actually, I was driving in mycar and just had a deep sense of
I wanted to be closer to God.
I wasn't really satisfied withmy spiritual discipline.
My prayer life was OK, but itdefinitely could be better.
My Bible reading was okay, butI felt like I, as a teacher and
a person who uses the scripturesas a resource to empower you,
(01:49):
my listener I wanted to sharemore, I wanted to do more, but
then I couldn't figure out why Iwas feeling this deep sense of
needing to do and be and feelmore, and then the spirit began
to speak to me about my past andman.
The revelation that camethrough that process was
absolutely profound.
(02:10):
That is still having an impacton me today.
This was recorded in my carabout two weeks ago, and so this
was recorded.
I recorded this, and so I doapologize the audio is not the
best.
As you listen, you definitelycan hear cars passing in the
background and I trust thatyou'll look past that because
you still be able to hear it butit won't be as sound quality to
(02:33):
what you're used to on thepodcast, and so I want you to
listen till the end, becausethere is definitely nuggets and
truths of gold that anyone who'shad a struggle in church or
perhaps you struggle in yourspiritual life, or you had a
deep moment of the soul, ormaybe someone hurt you in church
.
You will benefit from this, asI share what God spoke to me
(02:55):
about how I needed to get beyondthat.
Then, at the end of the so herewe go.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor.
That's not my business.
I don't want to rule or conqueranyone.
I should like to help everyoneif possible Jew, gentile, black,
man, white we all want to helpone another.
Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other'shappiness, not by each other's
misery.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
So I've been struggling deeply with my
personal spiritual disciplinesand it agitated me because I'm
unable to maintain thosedisciplines which, for me, would
be very important to how Ifunction as a husband, as a
(03:50):
father, as a person.
How I go through the world,accomplishing my daily tasks,
empathetic, driven, focused onthe day in front of me, is
affected deeply by my spiritualdisciplines and I have been very
(04:14):
undisciplined about it and itfrustrated me and it stunted my
spiritual growth.
What I mean by stunted myspiritual growth?
It didn't allow me to hear thevoice of God the way that I'm
accustomed to.
And that also agitated mebecause I'm in a business and my
(04:36):
calling is to help people, andI do.
I help people through spiritualgrowth, bible studies,
counseling, teaching, preaching.
So not being able to have thedivine inspiring moments is not
only detrimental to mycompleting daily tasks and being
(04:59):
in a mental disposition whereI'm happy and in a mental
disposition where I'm happy andsatisfied with myself, but not
having a passionate spiritualdevelopment program and process,
it really interferes with mycalling and my purpose that I
(05:23):
feel while I was created to liveand be and move on earth.
And so, with these things inmind, the Spirit told me, you're
never going to dive deep intoyour spiritual journey until you
(05:43):
are healed from past wounds.
And when that word came to me,it hit me to the core of my
being because I never imaginedthat my lack of spiritual
disciplines and my inconsistencywas directly related to From
past spiritual trauma, frombeing a church pastor, a church
(06:10):
planner, a church leader and thevarious interactions I had a
very tough time in my life thatcaused me to question if I was
gifted enough, talented enough,was I kidding myself?
Enough talented enough?
Talented enough?
Was I kidding myself?
(06:30):
I went through a phase in mylife, for instance in my
ministry, where everything Itried at least a great majority
of things that I tried a lot ofthem worked, but some of them
didn't, and I spent many, manyyears.
I spent many, many yearstraining and in ministry and
(06:58):
being educated in ministry,giving time, effort, energy and
money, lots of investment,training in ministry, only to
then move from that traininginto the real world of ministry
and see my efforts not producethe results.
I wanted, not only that, tobecome disillusioned about how
(07:24):
success or what I deem afruitful ministry was
accomplished.
I thought that mypresuppositions were that
fruitful ministry wasaccomplished by going to school,
being educated, learning how topastor, learning how to care
for people, learning how tointerpret scripture, teach
(07:46):
scripture, guide people, guidepeople through this process,
only to get behind the scenes ofministry, of big ministry, and
realize that people that youadmire don't study the Bible.
It's not that they didn't seethe Bible as important, but they
(08:07):
didn't take it as serious as Idid and I thought I was trained
that your personal time with Godand teaching and spending,
spending the time and disciplinestudying scripture and learning
and going from that place ofintimacy with God, being a very,
very in knowledge of the wordof God and how to teach it,
(08:28):
being the engine by which yourministry flourish To see that
people didn't study scripture orbarely read it, couldn't
articulate, didn't have any typeof creativity, but take other
people's sermons and use thatand see their ministries grow
and flourish and money come in.
And you saw differentpersonalities in ministry that
(08:53):
did not necessarily representwhat you thought would be a man
or woman of God and thatconfused me.
It confused me because peoplethat I admired were the ones who
made these decisions or actedthis way or gave people audience
(09:13):
who didn't work as hard, wasn'tas compassionate or empathetic,
wasn't concerned about studyingthe scripture, but more
concerned about at least in myestimation what other people,
what other ministries are doing,and basically copy and pasting,
(09:35):
without any ingenuity, becauseI came from a background where
your time you spent with God,that was the main driving force
(09:55):
for your creativity.
But in this circumstance Istarted to see that it was not
so much the creative spark ofGod but man's scientific way of
doing ministry and then applyingGod or superimposing God on top
of it, that it didn't originateit from God but it originated
from someone else's ideas thathad no context to that
(10:20):
particular locale of ministrybut was co-opted from some
ministry somewhere in a totaldifferent state or a total
different world, and just cutpace to use for that particular
ministry.
And that was very traumatic forme and then, on top of that,
(10:41):
made me feel as if what I wasdoing did not matter, the gift,
talents and abilities that Ibrought to the table were not
good enough and that, my friends, that's what caused me to be
hurt, angry, overweight,frustrated and not knowing why.
(11:05):
Overweight, frustrated and notknowing why it caused me to not
like ministry, to questionwhether or not I even wanted to
be in ministry.
Maybe I had become delusionalabout my calling.
Maybe I thought I was goodenough and realized that you're
not good enough for the bigleagues.
People that I admired wereministry personalities,
(11:26):
conference personalities, whohad a tremendous impact, and
these are the people that Ilooked up to and had anticipate,
maybe not following their exactfootsteps, but I was definitely
on my way to having that kindof fruitful ministry.
I realized that this was notgoing to happen, not because I
(11:55):
said because the people thatinfluenced me or had influence
didn't never, never said to me Iwas good enough, but every
practice in every in their mindsI wasn't good enough.
In their minds it was onlythere for my color of my skin,
not because of the impact that Ihad.
I even felt set up sometimesthat I was given projects I was
working very hard and givenprojects that would never go
into succeed and decided thatyou know what it's time for me.
(12:22):
If this is what ministry isabout, I don't want to have
anything to do with it.
For me, if this is what ministryis about, I don't want to have
anything to do with it and thatmy friends sent me on a journey
of leaving the ministry notleaving church ministry, going
into becoming a militarychaplain, because I simply
wanted to care for people, Iwanted to teach people, I wanted
(12:45):
to help people.
I wanted to my ministry to bemarked by people's lives being
changed by what I had to offer.
And for me I was standing andteaching the Word of God,
teaching the Scripture.
So my gifts, talents andabilities did not match up with
what that church vision andministry was all about.
(13:07):
And I remember one of thesenior leaders of the church
said to me you understand thatyou work for these people.
And I was shocked because and Iremember one church leader
saying, you understand you workfor these people.
And his words perturbed me, hiswords caused me to reflect
(13:29):
deeply because I always feltthat I worked for God and that
any person who had any deepspiritual connection with God
would believe the same thing.
So I was introduced to a lot ofdifferent viewpoints about
ministry.
That was very unattractive tome and it's true I could have
(13:50):
been just in the wrong place atthe wrong time.
Helen Keller said that althoughthe world is full of suffering,
it is also full of overcomingthe overcoming of suffering,
overcoming of suffering.
And it wasn't to say that.
All of my experiences with thisorganization, this church, was
(14:13):
unhealthy, but it is to say thatI went through a ministerial
evolution that I was unfamiliarwith, I didn't understand and to
give talents and abilities thatI prioritized Were not welcome
(14:37):
or needed, or they were not seenas important, or they were
minimized or not givenopportunity to grow and flourish
and be mentored.
And these were presuppositionsI had in my mind before.
(14:58):
But behind the door of ministryand this is important for us
all to understand that not alleverything that glitter is gold,
as the old saying goes, and soyou never know what a thing is.
The grass is not always greeneron the other side.
But no matter what, as HelenKeller said, as we go through
(15:21):
suffering, we must also know howto, or learn to, overcome it.
And so, for one reason, this iswhat the Lord allowed me to go
through.
But Romans 8, 28 says God willcause all things to work out for
the good to those who love him,those who are called according
to his purpose.
(15:41):
So if you're going through thatexperience, you may have been
hurt by church.
That experience can be used toteach you something about life,
to give you the resources thatare necessary To put you in a
position to help people that arein your sphere of influence,
that God has strategicallyplaced in your path For you to
(16:04):
help them get through theirtrauma.
So when the Spirit said to meyou left ministry wounded and
you've never gotten over it saidto me you left ministry wounded
and you've never gotten over it, that you're never going to
experience the new blessings Godhas for you until you begin
healing.
And then I asked the spirit howdo I heal?
Because I want to.
I'm not, if you know me, I'mnot a.
(16:27):
I'm a pretty independent person, self-thinker, free thinker and
Ier and I don't like to rely onpeople.
Having your own being your ownman, being your own person,
walking with God, you ministerto people from the overflow of
your cup.
So I said Spirit will win.
(16:47):
And it's like the Spirit saidto me, you can't put a timetable
on grief.
(17:14):
So when I thought about theSpirit saying, well, you can't
make room for new blessingsuntil you heal from old wounds,
and I thought about that and Ithought well, I thought about
Jesus says the word blessing isbasically safety.
It's really a comprehensiveshelter experience.
It means safety in your entirelife.
Blessings is not just material,it's financial, spiritual,
mental, physical, it's allencompassing, it's sort of a
(17:38):
wholeness.
So Jesus said In my Father'shouse, in the Gospels in Matthew
I think, there are manymansions, there are many rooms,
that God has a place of safety,there's a room of safety for you
, there's a place where you'regoing to get to, that new place
(17:59):
of blessing, that room ofblessing, that house of blessing
.
But you can't get there untilyou've been healed by the healer
.
So I said well, I want to belike the blind man at the pool
of Saloon.
Can somebody just dip me in thepool to be healed?
And the Spirit said back to meyour healing is a lifelong
(18:20):
journey, it's a process.
What's more important aboutthat is I had to.
I'm judging my own, even now asI talk about it.
I'm judging my ownpresuppositions about blessing.
Why do you want to be blessedand why do you want to have
people?
No one wants to go through lifewithout, at least in my mind,
without helping someone andbeing a blessing, benefiting
(18:46):
others.
So it's a lifelong journey.
Healing is a lifelong journey.
So my encouragement to mylisteners is we're never going
to get to the place we need tobe and experience the new home,
the new room of blessings untilwe experience healing and
(19:06):
healing is a lifelong process,it may be we can consider what
are the things that we crave forwhen we want to experience
healing.
What are the things that wecrave for?
I'm still trying to work all ofthat out.
I'm not sure how cravings andhealing go hand in hand, but
(19:31):
when I want to feel blessed orexperience happiness, what?
What triggers come to mind andmake me feel like I don't
deserve that?
When I want to experiencehappiness, what triggers come to
mind and make me feel like Iwon't deserve that?
I don't know who this is for,but I can tell you that this is
the warts and all this.
These are the warts of my lifeexperience, things that I've
(19:54):
learned, been through.
I've been through many more, butthese are the things that I'm
still being healed, and perhapsyou are a person who's needing
healing yourself that God has aplace and a space for you and me
to be healed, and that we needto rely on the Lord and see it
as a journey, not rush thehealing process, but allow time
(20:17):
and chance to have its place,and maybe in the future, the
time will come when we begin toexperience that deep richness of
blessing.
There's nothing better thanhaving deep intimacy with God,
having a deep journey with God.
Because it's from that place,because it's a deep journey,
(20:39):
deep intimacy with God it's fromthat place comes blessings.
Not only blessings.
For me and maybe this is whatblessings mean it's the ability
to feed other people, to helpother people come alive again,
to give other people hope, tointroduce Christ to people and
(21:01):
see their lives be changed.
This, for me, is what blessingsare, and I will never be able
to help people get through, getinto their home of journey,
their room of journey, theirroom of blessing, until I heal
for my woman that my efforts arein vain until I do the hard
(21:24):
work of being healed.
Wow, such a deep moment ofreflection and I want to share
that with you because, as mylistener, as our community, I
want you to understand that, nomatter what you're going through
, no matter what you'reexperiencing in your life,
healing is a lifelong processand some of you who are
(21:45):
listening, you may beexperiencing depression or you
may be going through a very,very tough time.
I just want to let you knowyou're not alone, that there are
people who get it and there arepeople who are willing to walk
with you through the process.
If this message or if thiscontent helped you at all or it
gave you encouragement, send mea note, let me know, send me an
email.
It's down in the show notes.
(22:06):
You can see it right there,okay, so, hey, thanks once more
for being a part of this Wordfor Change podcast.
You guys, keep the faith, keephanging in there and remember
change begins with you.
Until next time, talk to yousoon.
Salute and I'm out.
Thank you.
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