The chronic, habitual and destructive struggles we face in our culture and daily lives are caused by not only emotional wounds but deeply embedded frustrations.
These frustrations HURT!
They are painful and long lasting. Why? Because they are perpetual.
Trust is the big issue.
Unlike a wound from the past that leaves a lasting mark on our identity, frustrations, due to a lack of trust in others or in our ability to love, be loved, valued, accepted, find excellent friendships, etc. Prevent us from healing and resolving not only past wounds but present problems that perpetuate the haunting, unwanted, habitual struggles we all face.
Many times, in my life and ministry these hauntings have been sexual; such as, pornography, homosexual behavior, and same sex attractions (SSA). For others I have been privileged to journey with, the sexual struggle is opposite sex attraction (OSA), yielding to porn and various infidelities. In recent years, I have walked with men struggling with chronic fear or depression -- many are afraid of their own shadow and do not know how to overcome the ghosts.
In truth, I don't believe we know how to deal with stress.
We don't know how to deal with frustration.
We don't know how to deal with feelings of rejection...
But...
When these things whelm up inside of us, we get agitated – we may consider all other possible solutions – then out of disbelief that others will not respond to our proposed solutions (cries for help), we turn to our haunting screams to meet our needs and provide escape. Many of us find sexualized fantasies as the quickest and ONLY KNOWN REAL SOLUTION. We have to short circuit this connection and DEVELOP the relationships we want and need. But it takes TIME, PATIENCE, HUMILITY, LOVE, RESPECT, and WILLNESS TO COMMUNICATE and YIELD. We have to learn to TRUST.
This is hard because we have become DEFENSIVELY DETACHED from others. Even when we are WILLING to CONSIDER that a person MIGHT be worthy of trust, we are CONSTANTLY LOOKING, SEEKING, and EXPECTING DISAPPOINTMENT. Once we find anything of that sort, it confirms our doubts and we are comforted and forewarned not to TRUST – we were RIGHT and we should keep ourselves SAFE. "Yeah, you can't trust him all he does is put up a front!" "He doesn't really care. All he wants is what he can get out of me."
When we are frustrated, anxious, or emotionally distressed we often seek alternative solutions to the frustration – we just don't trust our efforts will succeed. We've tried before. Our parents failed us. Our brothers failed us. Our friends, our husbands, our wives, our children, and so many more failed us time and time again and we just don't trust anymore! When we give up on all possible efforts or possible solutions, some of us sexualize the emotion. The sexualized fantasy becomes our only KNOWN solution to the problem! We dream a DREAM of a better life rather than WORK to create one!
WORK! Is this really the answer? Must we work at it, time and time again always failing? There has to be another answer. There must be!
But we are stuck – trapped. We may have read all the books, done therapy, gotten a good understanding of ourselves, have theories about how to resolve our chronic problems, but until you are able to go beyond just talking about the problem and all the people held imprisoned by haunting giants like SSA and OSA, fear and depression, and all the gross activities frequently disturbing our lives, we will never progress.
We can sit and talk about the issues all day long and the things that caused our wounds. Have you done this? Have you sat and talked to others about your wounds? Many find this healing and refreshing, but only to an extent! The deeper we get, some of us find that when we are talking to others, our desires to act out begin to materialize. We want to be comforted, to be touched, to be accepted, valued, and loved. To a limited degree, all of this may not be inappropriate but it can quickly go there. I mention this because I believe that talking can only give us SO MUCH. After we have talked SO MUCH we start to revert to the same methods as before. We must find a more effective alternative.
Don't get me wrong. Reading and therapy are often necessary. They are a prerequisite. You can't progress AT ALL unless you understand the concepts and see how they apply to you personally. Each person is different and not all concepts apply the same way or to the same extent with everyone. But once you have a good grasp of the tools (grace and truth strategies), we must put them to practice. We must take possession of the land, so to speak. We must rid our lives of all the shadows and ghosts. We must replace the lies with truth; and watch the TRUTH set us, the captives, free (John 8:32) from all the dungeons and wastelands mocking and destroying who we are and how we live.
It is like putting a complex piece of furniture together. You can do two things. You can try to put it together without the instructions and fail. Or you can read the instructions but never bother to put the table together – believing it is too complicated and impossible. I don't think we can resolve all our struggles or put them in order without first understanding the concepts. Nevertheless, it is fruitless doing all this reading and therapy if we never put what we learn to practice. The project may seem daunting, overwhelming and impossible! It is frustrating and the instructions are frustrating and don't always appear to work. But sometimes all that is required is that we familiarize ourselves with all the furniture pieces and read the instructions all the way through several times and then implement – SURRENDER – to what we have learned; sometimes, we DON"T KNOW THAT A THING WILL WORK UNTIL WE TRY IT! How many times have we looked at something from afar and thought, 'This ain't gonna work!' only to find out that it DOES – it just doesn't work the way we THOUGHT IT WOULD.
My struggles with lying, stealing, and homosexuality were the same way. We think we know something but until we get on the other side of working it out, we don't know if it works or not. Some things can only be experienced by a “trust-that-works-to-get-the-job-done” for us to know if it really works or not. Even those things might need to be tweaked.
In the Bible, God instructs us to work out what He has already worked in (Philippians 2:12-13). When God has worked into our lives a new heart, we are responsible to put the truths He has written there into our experience – moment by moment.
Yet we are defensively detached. We don't trust people (with our wounds and innermost thoughts) and we REALLY DON’T trust God! Our concept of God is twisted into what seems an impossible puzzle; but we must LEARN TO TRUST! Trust PEOPLE? Not really, trusting people comes as we learn to trust the real and living God and stop defensively detaching! Trusting God is the real solution to resolving our innermost frustrations. (Of course, one must learn how and find the tools and strategic truths in the Bible).
Love, TRUST, and healthy relationships help to put these feelings of frustration at ease. Intimate friendships (relationships with people we feel understand us deeply) help us to cope and relieve day-to-day anxiety and thus reduce if not eliminate the need to use vices or fantasy to medicate our wounds. But we must be careful that these relationships do not become a vice in and of themselves.
Our daily frustrations create pent up energy. If this pent up energy is not resolved, it develops into wounds. These wounds create long lasting pain if they are never resolved. If we never learn to deal with our daily frustrations in healthy ways, we perpetuate the problem with the same tried and true solutions — in my case, I used to sexualize or dramatize (typically through fantasy and/or acting out: lying, stealing, or some homosexual behavior). These wounds are past frustrations that HURT. They are resolved by constructive, CONFIRMING activities in a personal, active relationship with Jesus Christ. At the moment, it is internalized energy that we don’t know what to do with. When this energy is released into healthy affirming truths within an intimate, trusting friendship with Jesus the wounds heal and the pain goes away. Yes, it is true. Let me introduce to you how.
It is activity that releases the frustration and an intimate relationship with Jesus heals the wound.
The activities also do other things. What activities am I referring? Activities that create intimate moments with Jesus. First, you must have a relationship with Jesus. At the end of this article and on the bottom of every page of the website is a link that will introduce you to the most fantastic relationship you will ever experience; with One, whom you will come to know as the most valuable treasure in your life.
Jesus provides a sense of belonging, through His Father’s love for you; He will build a sense of worth within you, because His own LIFE dwells in you; and He will cause you to understand how significant and competent you are because His Spirit works in you – doing all the things you tried to do before but couldn’t and, oh, so much more.
As we confidently perform the tasks we discover in the Word it affirms our IDENTITY IN CHRIST and destroys the negative thinking patterns we’ve mislead ourselves into believing were true.
This newfound affirming relationship provides nurturing and guidance to facilitate the healing process. Trusting Christ alone and being continuously affirmed in the Word (Psalms 119:11) allows us to easily let these deeply protected feelings go. Instead of being defensively detached, we learn to trust, to love and realize that we are loved. These new feelings move in and replace the old (2 Corinthians 5:17). We learn to release through activity—taking our frustrations out in kind, tender, and forgiving ways instead of through our anger, fear, depression, lies, greed, or sexually stimulated bodies. We learn to be LOVED and LOVE rather than detach. We learn to trust and express our healthy affections rather than withhold them, thus leaving us feeling lonely, frustrated and isolated.
The RELATIONSHIP gives us confidence! Before we may have been afraid that we looked stupid and were incompetent. Now with love and support, we can resolve our frustrations like a man, act like a man, and become a man without feeling rejected, ashamed, or restrained – like a woman, act like a woman, and become a woman without all these negative feelings. We can grow into our new IDENTITY without impossible hindrances! The constant affirmation helps us to think positively and perpetually respond to frustrations through healthy actions. It creates a healthy perpetual pattern of resolving problems like a child of God — not internalizing them but acting to resolve them in godly ways.
Thus, the old cycle is short-circuited and a new one has begun.
If we don't replace those wounds with healthy relationships shaped by affirming activities that teach us to TRUST, be HONEST, feel ACCEPTED, LOVED, VALUED, COMPETENT then we will never resolve the deepest underlying frustrations that confront us with whatever our chronic struggle may be and perpetuate resolution. (Trust is the big issue because we are detached defensively and lack trust.) This frustration is energy we have to learn to move and express in healthy ways not in the same old fantasies and habits. Rather than dream about being a Christian and being around others who are Christians, we must surrender and let out the pain – resolving the underlying emotional wounds with renewed methods of dealing with stressful situations. There will be no further need to sexualize, dramatize, or fantasize in order to escape.
Activity alone is not good enough. Some get the impression that doing activities will create a sense of identity. While this may be true to an extent, what is really needed is emotional healing. Our problem is not with having relationships. Many of us have relationships. Our problem is not just performing an activity, it is a matter of bonding with others and learning to resolve problems in healthy, godly ways. When we learn to open up, look at and study our wounds — trying to understand them, and trust others to help us truly heal them IN CHRIST; then we can learn to experience who we are IN CHIRST! Confident and secure in our IDENTITY!
So many have asked me if I still struggle (even just a little) with homosexual temptations. Praise God I do not!!! Why? The struggle ceased when I begin to trust who I am IN CHRIST and what happened to me IN CHRIST! Some of you are thinking – “This is a bunch of Christianeese”... But we must not only exchange our identity we must exchange how we think (even the words we use to define chronic issues) and exchange how we choose so that we may experience our true IDENTIY. Over time, as a Child of God thinks, chooses and feels according to God’s Truth – His Word – we discover that we are no longer held captive to all those shadows and ghosts. We are FREE!!!
Resolution is not in DOING. Resolution is discovered in BEING – being a Child of God – knowing the truth, reckoning the truth, yielding to the truth, walking in the truth (Romans 6) and focusing on the TRUTH – the TRUTH (John 14:6) who is Jesus; written upon our hearts and held within the pages of the Bible.
Once we learn to trust we will begin to grow and discover godly ways of dealing with stress, frustration and disappointment. These new strategic methods will slowly replace our reactions and we will EXPERIENCE our new identity IN CHRIST!
I hope this helps.
