"THE PROBLEMS"
By Evangelist Diana Gray
Copyrighted (c) 2000, 2001, 2002 All Rights Reserved
 KJV Bible For All Scripture

     A special area of needed healing is that of hurting, painful emotions stemming from past memories.  Scripture calls bruised past emotions as well as physical and moral weaknesses, "infirmities." 
Luke 7:21 And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight. 

     Some people assume that everyone in the world is crazy but them.  You have probably heard the joke about the guy who said everyone is crazy in the world but you and me.... and I wonder about you.  Well, hurting, painful emotions caused from the past, is anything but funny.  They are real and hurt deeply!  Painful emotions tend to leave false attitudes and wrong opinions.  Their self worth is distorted and off balance. 
     Parents can have a lot to do with the way there child will view themselves as adults.  If a person was taught to have low self esteem, because they never seemed to measure up to their parent's expectations of them, then as adults they might feel inferior.  Continuous feelings of poor self esteem can hinder the born again relationship a person might have with the Lord.  How can a person have a totally right relationship with Jesus when they might feel worthless in their own eyesight.  Is self worth important? Yes it is but pride and conceit is not.  That is living with sinful attitudes and a whole different subject.
     So what is self worth pertaining to a solid relationship with the Lord? It's knowing that a person is valuable in the sight of God.  That one is special and the more a person becomes Christ like, the more true self worth they will have.  Being Christ like is respecting one's self as a person reaches out to love other people.  It's showing Godly love and compassion to one's fellow man.
    People who become born again accepting Jesus as their Savior have a spiritual peace and comfort knowing the Lord loves them but as problems of the world seep back into their awareness inner, painful emotions arise.  Satan hates born again Christians and will use anything of their past to hinder their future.  Anxieties and frustrations begin to take root again from daily trials and struggles.  What is going on and why can't people seem to come to grips with daily problems? Inner, painful emotions from the past! I can tell you from the clergies view point, a great deal of Christian counseling goes on everyday around the whole world. 
    People believe that God loves them but they are hard pressed to understand why they have such problems like they do.  Out comes feelings of worthlessness and low self esteem.  They have not been Christians long enough or serious enough to know how to stand up and spiritually fight back.  Penetration of deep spiritual growth has not taken deep enough root in their lives yet.  Healing has not taken place yet within the person's inner child.  The inner child who suffered and cried yet no one heard or seem to care.  These little inner, painful emotions left over from childhood need to be healed or a person will always be hindered in their spiritual growth. 
    Prayer, fasting, and meditation will only go so far until a person realizes that they need to talk it out as well.  God wants us to fellowship with each other and share our hurts.  Holding things inside only serve to pack down painful emotions that will surface sooner or later.  That is right, sooner or later these painful memories will surface at the most inopportune times.  It is far better to deal with them as they crop up. 
     Have you ever wondered why people in the clergy are so good at helping a person get in touch with their feels of self worth and inner pain.  They have it themselves!  That's right!  The greater the Pastor or Evangelist is in seeing the hurts of others with a deep since of compassion, the more they have experienced pain themselves.  Why do they seem so good at it?  They have learned how to have spiritual strength from the Lord as they came to grips with their own problems.  Remember what I told you in part one of this series, everyone and I do mean every single person on the face of the earth has inner, painful emotions from the past.  It's how each person has learned how to handle it that matters.
     Some people have become overly sensitive to life's problems and are full of painful hang-ups.  Why? They never learned how to handle disappointments or the nature of life's changes.  They haven't learned how to be tough enough when people are cruel.  Overly sensitive people sincerely care but simply can't take any hard knocks.  They too were hurt deeply in the past but for some reason never learned how to cope.  For this person everything is either white or black.  Gray areas of uncertainty are hard to cope with. 
     This is the person who was "never" told that they were special or.............pretty.  They may never have been told that they mattered if they lived or died.  Maybe loving affection and parental approval was withheld at a crucial time of early childhood development.  For many this can be the hardest of all inner, painful emotions to deal with.  Feeling like everyone is talking about or picking on them is very real and can hurt deeply.  How many of us one time or the other at school were laughed at for some reason or other.  Maybe our hair looked funny, or we tripped over a rock and everyone laughed.  Maybe we were too skinny or over weight for our height and build.  Can anyone ever say that they were always perfect in weight and beautiful?  How many models have said they were homely as children?
     For the overly sensitive person, learning how to handle life with logic while overlooking their emotional hang-ups is a possible solution.  Can they learn how to do this, yes but it will take years to perfect with any degree of consistency.  They can do it with the Lord's help and consistent daily effort and prayer.   Striving to react to life's problems with logic is not easy to do, but it can be done with hard work and courage.  Overly sensitive people need as much kindness and attention as they can possibly get.  For them praise and encouragement is emotionally needed as much as food. 
     The opposite of being overly sensitive is being tough and hard.  inner, painful emotions are packed down with so much force that tears are seldom seen or felt.  This kind of person doesn't let people get too close and puts on a hard tough front.  Being a dominating force is projected from a seemingly cold indifferent attitude.  Power and authority become a needed emotional necessity.  This kind of person out of rejection and pain from the past, will come across with a dominating personality.  The demon spirit called "control" is strongly felt attacking and tempting the person.  Self sustained pride is only a front for a deeply hurting heart.  These people need a lot of compassion and understanding because sooner or later all of the packed down emotions will be released.  Sooner or later they will find themselves crying and not understand why, inner painful emotions.
     If every emotionally sensitive person left the churches we might not have enough to fill the pews Sunday morning.  Why, because Satan uses our feelings against us doesn't he? If he can get people to up and get hurt at every little thing that is said in church we would all be hurting.  This is why gossip is to be avoided at all costs and building up of the body so important to the emotional health of the church congregation.
     Let's look at another area of problems and that is a learned response of perfectionism.  This response says if my parents didn't think I was good enough for them I will work so hard until I am perfect at everything I do.  So they go throughout life running themselves ragged trying to please everyone.  What happens as time goes on and they become a born-again Christian? They set out to prove they are the best Christian that they can be but somewhere down the line they get their perception of God all wrong. 
     God becomes this disapproving parent to them that is never seems satisfied with with them.  Instead of perceiving God as a kind and loving Abba Father, they see Him as a God of punishment and anger.  Every effort they make to be good studying the bible and living a Godly life never seems good enough for their perception of God.   When failures come as they will come the perfectionist is knocked down.  After awhile and a number of years have gone by, some perfectionist Christians begin to manifest all kinds of sicknesses and emotional problems.  Why what has happened in their lives hindering their walk with the Lord?  Inner, painful emotions from the past have set them up for a bad fall.  Is Satan happy when this happens, yes.  Every three years or so approximately 25% of the clergy leaves the ministry world wide.  Why? They too were caught up in these inner, painful emotions of the past.  They too felt the pain of the past as it hinders their daily lives.
     Some people allow fears and frustrations to rule their lives.  They may begin a project of noble intentions only to end up quitting out of a false sense of fear.  These people need as much encouragement as possible to keep going. They start projects with the full intentions of completing the task only to back out and quit before someone may see them fail.  To them the worst thing in life is failure so they try to quit before it happens.  The problem with this is every time they back out and quit they feel like their own worst enemy.  So the circle of  inner painful emotions continues.  Encouragement and more encouragement is needed to help them believe in themselves.
     The ones who try and quit are little better off than the person who simply refuses to try at all for fear of failure.  Why try when they know in their hearts that they will loose and fail?  They find fault with everyone and everything as they make excuses to get out of even trying at all.  They know they are going to fail because they believe it they will.  Negative after negative attitude.  These people are hurting badly and  because of the fear of failure, they need to be encouraged to try again.  They need to be told that someone believes in them no matter how much they seem to reject that idea.  For this person solid decisions are hard to make and keep.  Indecision and defeat is a painful part of life.  Only by rerouting their negative ideas of failure and fear  into God's positives will break these harmful attitudes. 
     Are you seeing yourself in any one of these painful problem areas?  Everyone of us has to some degree or other one or more present in their lives.  These  inner, painful emotions in one form or other are present in all of us.  We can't get around it nor should we hide from the truth.  We simply can't bring the Good News of Jesus 
Christ and the healing of the cross without attempting to bring healing to hurting hearts caused from  inner, painful emotions. 

2  Corinthians12:8-10 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. 

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