In2Freedom: charts

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Friday, October 30, 2020

From WoLVeS to WoRTH

I was first called to consciously share the world of childhood trauma in 1992.[1] It continues to stand as the beginning of the most painful journey I have ever faced.

Along the way, I learned a lot of helpful things about what trauma does to us, the effects of our self-protective strategies, and how wonderfully the word of God addresses every imaginable wound a child (of any age) could ever experience.[2]

One of the most helpful acronyms for understanding what childhood trauma does to us is in the letters WLVS,[3] which our home church has expanded as WoLVeS to help make the point all the clearer.

WoLVeS stands for the Wounds, Lies, Vows and Strongholds that harass us at every turn when we have never experienced healing and freedom in Jesus Christ. In short, it simply refers to what happens when we are Wounded as children (or any age) and the devil comes in and Lies to us about who God is to us and who we are to him. If we take those Lies to heart, we then make self-protective Vows to never let ourselves get hurt again (even though that never works). This sarky/fleshly pattern becomes so ingrained into us that it creates a Stronghold of always shutting down when we are triggered (often preceded with an explosion of some sort).

The last two days, my time with God in his word brought my mind to consider how I would express an acronym to stand against our WoLVeS. It is one thing to identify what is wrong with us, but we need some expression of the “good news of great joy” that comes to us in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.[4]

I had just asked Father if there was anything from my past he wanted me to remember that would give me opportunity to renew my mind with his truth about those things. His answer was not to lead me to remember anything that happened to me, but to remember things about him and my relationship to him, things that are easily forgotten when the WoLVeS attack.

This brought me to the WoLVeS acronym where I remembered that the one part of this imagery that does not change in our freedom work is the “W”, the “Wounds”. There is nothing wrong with wounds. They happen. Jesus was wounded and it didn’t cause WoLVeS (it actually gave us our salvation). Paul was wounded, and no WoLVeS (it actually gave us most of his letters to the churches!).

Why did Jesus, Paul, and others, not have WoLVeS?

Because they did not believe the devil’s Lies, they did not make self-protective Vows, and they did not give the devil Strongholds from which to work.

The message is not that we ourselves, especially as children, knew how to do this. The good news I am sharing is not primarily focused at making churches where everybody gets this right all the way from childhood and never needs help.

Jesus did not come to seek and to save the well, but to seek and to save the LOST![5] He came into the world to save SINNERS, of whom Paul saw himself as the best (or worst) example.[6]

God gives his children something that no worldling will ever experience, something called being transformed through the renewal of our minds.[7] When someone receives new life in Jesus, and becomes a new creature in him, part of this newness includes a new mind and a new heart.[8] This means that we can think in new ways, believe new and wonderful things, and walk in “newness of life”![9]

As I have only begun considering an acronym to contrast with our WoLVeS imagery, what came to mind is quite fitting, that our WoRTH defeats the WoLVeS.

WoLVeS	WoRTH
Wounds: they happen, not the problem.	Wounds: they happen, not the problem.
Lies: filling our minds with falsehoods about God that immediately steal our thoughts of running to Father for help.	Reality: filling our minds with what is real about God and ourselves so that we want to run to him for help.
Vows: setting up self-protective walls to make sure we never get wounded again.	Truth: letting ourselves bond with the Truth in mind, heart and soul so that our wounds always increase our attachment with the Triune God.
Strongholds: accepting bondage-strategies as both necessary and normal so that we are unable to walk in the light or in the truth no matter how brightly or truthfully it is presented.	Hope: attaching to every promise of who we are to God, what he is doing in us, where he is taking us, and what he will complete in us, knowing they all will be fulfilled no matter how wounded we have ever been.

This is not, for me, about how well I have matched the WoLVeS acronym with something of my own. It is about the realization that, when we ask God what he wants us to “remember” about our pasts, don’t be surprised if he skips memories of things that were done to us and takes us to realities about our relationship with him that we have forgotten (or never knew) because we have believed the devil’s lies.

Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”[10]

Abiding doesn’t merely mean spending time; it means attaching. In other words, when the lies inside us are replaced by the realities of attachment to Jesus, that is when we truly become his disciples (followers), and in that attachment to him, that is when we really come to know the truth (since Jesus IS the truth), and in our attachment to Jesus as the Truth, Jesus sets us free in himself.

While 1992 is the year I was thrown into thoughts and feelings of childhood trauma like I had never known before, that is not where my journey started. My testimony begins earlier that year when God opened my ears to how he speaks through his word, opened my eyes to how he shows us what he is doing, and opened my will to how we join him in his work.[11]

The wonderfully gracious thing is that our Father in heaven was leading me into what was Real about walking with him every day of my life before showing me how much damage the Devil’s lies had done to me and people I love. He was already opening my heart, soul and mind to his Truth to give me the weapons that “destroy strongholds… arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” and lead us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ…”[12] And he was already flooding my inner being with Hope that all his children can experience everything he promises for our healing, freedom and maturing in Christ in this lifetime, and the perfection of our eternal life at the return of our Savior.

What do we do with this?

We ask our heavenly Father to show us any Wounds that haven’t been healed, any Lies we have believed, any Vows we have made and any Strongholds we have created so that we can come into his presence with our Wounds, attach to the Realities of who we are in Christ, bond with the Truth that sets us free, and “hold fast to the Hope set before us… a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…”[13]

And, if you are one of those rare people who has experienced no hindrances in your walk with God because of childhood or other trauma, ask Father who needs the kind of help we are exploring here and go join him in his work of healing the brokenhearted and binding up their wounds.[14]

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

[1] I was obviously living in the effects of childhood trauma for most of my life but had not had to face it head on as began that year.

[2] I share this with the belief that, contemporary problems and understandings of the human condition do not need to be mentioned in the Bible to be considered valid, but our understanding of what God will do to help us with anything at all in life does come from God’s word and is promised to us in the new covenant in Jesus’ blood. We seek to know what God has given to us in our justification by grace through faith that makes us right with him, what he is doing now in our sanctification by grace through faith in which we keep growing up to maturity in Christ, and what he will complete in our glorification by grace through faith when we finally become fully like Jesus when we see him as he is.

[3] This was introduced to us by Marcus Warner in his resource, Understanding the Wounded Heart. Marcus is the leader of Deeper Walk International (https://deeperwalkinternational.org/). Just a reminder to not assume that someone sharing something they have learned from a ministry means they endorse everything about that ministry! I’m just giving credit where credit is due.

[4] Luke 2:10-11 (context: Luke 2:1-20)

[5] Luke 19:10

[6] I Timothy 1:15 (Note: Paul was not saying that he was living a life so sinful that he was always the “foremost” of sinners. Rather, in a similar way to how Wayne Gretzky, at time of writing, holds the highest points record in the NHL even long after he retired from playing, Paul saw himself as the chief example of a sinner even long after he was no longer living a life of sin).

[7] Romans 12:2

[8] II Corinthians 5:17; I Corinthians 2:16; Ezekiel 36:26

[9] Romans 6:4

[10] John 8:31-32

[11] One of the most helpful Scriptures in this regard is Philippians 2:12-13 where I considered what it looks like for God to work in us to will and to work for his good pleasure resulting in us working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Such serious realities require sincere attachments.

[12] II Corinthians 10:4-5 (context: II Corinthians 10:1-18)

[13] Hebrews 6:19 (context: Hebrews 6:13-20)

[14] Psalm 147:3

Monday, March 23, 2015

Pastoral Ponderings ~ People, and the Worlds in Which We Live

Human beings were created by God to live in two worlds. One world is physical, or material; the other world is spiritual, or immaterial.

For us to live in both worlds God gave us a physical body to relate to the material world, and a spirit to relate to the spiritual world.

Neither our body, nor our spirit, is us. This is why people can be spiritually dead and still live in the material world, and why we keep on living after our body dies. There is the “us” that is designed to live in both the material and immaterial worlds through our material body, and our immaterial spirit.

The reason that a naturalistic worldview cannot tell us who we are, or where we came from, is because it disallows any consideration of the immaterial side of life. It has no means by which to test if there is a spiritual life, and so it denies that such spiritual life exists. It must be noted that science is only limited to the material world by naturalistic people.

However, since God is spirit,[1] and he created a material universe to reveal “his eternal power and divine nature,”[2]the only way we can understand our humanity is to get to know God in both the spiritual and the material worlds in which we live.

The problem is that we begin life with a huge, major, all-encompassing limitation. What is it, you may ask? It is that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,[3]we have all earned the wages of sin which is death,[4] which means we all begin life “dead in the trespasses and sins,”[5]that characterize every human being.

We all know that human beings who are spiritually dead can still do amazing and creative things in the material world. Even secular scientists who deny the spiritual world (an expression of their deadness to the spiritual world) invent and create things that are for some material good. If life was only about the material world, such materialistic creativity would be of much greater value.

However, since we were created by God who is spirit, and we were created by God with a body and a spirit, something is seriously wrong with human beings who are spiritually dead. When we are spiritually dead, we are oblivious to what God is doing. We are also oblivious to any help God would offer us from his ministering angels.[6]

At the same time, our spiritually dead condition cuts us off from understanding how God’s arch-enemy Satan, along with Satan’s demonic army, are working to keep us dead. With such spiritual blindness, Satan and his demons convince people that the spiritual world does not exist, or that Satan and demons do not destroy people from the spiritual world.

However, deadness to the spiritual world does not make the spiritual world cease what it is. Deadness is a bad thing, no matter whether it is physical or spiritual. Deadness “in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,” also means, “following the prince of the power of the air,” and doing those things that makes us “by nature, children of wrath,” meaning, those who are under the just condemnation for our sin. Being dead in sin does not remove us from our guilt, but guarantees our condemnation because of our guilt.

The good news is that God is still in the business of making dead people alive. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”[7]Our participation in sin had earned us the wages of death. God’s expression of mercy, love, and grace, brings us to life.

God saves people by grace, bringing them to have faith in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The wages of sin is death, but salvation by grace through faith is a free gift of God. What we earned through our works killed us; what we receive as a gift of God’s merciful love and grace restores us to life.

Once we understand that the “us” of our humanity is designed to live in two worlds, we must be sure that what we have is truly life. When Jesus spoke of Satan and his demons he said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”[8]Satan desires to steal your joy, your hope, your very life.

However, when Jesus told us why he came, he said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”[9]Jesus came to give us spiritual life that brings us into fellowship with him and his Father. We can live in both the material and spiritual words in this abundance of life now, with the promise of even greater things to come in the future.

For the moment, be sure that you come to Jesus for that life that is truly life. Once you have it, he can show you how he works to make it as "abundantly" as he promised.

[1] John 4:24

[2] Romans 1:20

[3] Romans 3:23

[4] Romans 6:23

[5] Ephesians 2:1

[6] Hebrews 1:14

[7] Ephesians 2:4-5

[8] John 10:10

[9] John 10:10

Thursday, August 14, 2014

The Thirty-Day Challenge: Depression

This challenge is based on the belief that at the heart of all depression is some way that we do not yet know God. The cure, no matter how slowly it takes effect, is to get to know God in the ways we lack. An integral part of this journey is to seek God in his word each day in order to discover how he would speak to both sides of this experience. Through his word, he will show us ways we do not yet know him, and will reveal himself to us in the very ways we are missing.

To complete this challenge, spend thirty consecutive days (as best as possible), reading in the word of God from wherever you left off the day before. Then, prayerfully talk to God about whatever stands out to you, asking that he would reveal all the ways you do not know him in relation to what you are reading, and the ways you could know him through faith in those words of Scripture.

There are no requirements for which part of the Bible we should read (although reading through books like Leviticus and Numbers would likely create unnecessary frustration for this journey). The book of Psalms deals with the full range of human emotions, along with beautiful and poetic expressions of the person and work of God, so that may be helpful for many people. The gospels show Jesus relating to people in such personal encounters that this may be exactly what some need to experience. And the letters to the churches describe the doctrines and practices of the church in ways that may help reveal what we don’t already experience in our relationship with God. Whatever the case, God ministers to us through his word, so wade into the river of God’s words and let them comfort your soul.

If you copy-and-paste this into your word processor, it should give you a workable document to use as a journal of your journey.

Day 1: Scripture _________________________________________________