Introduction
If we’re ever to see the fullness of God’s calling in our lives, and if we’re ever to live that abundant life that He promised, we first have to be set free from the chains of our past. As much as you may not want to believe it, the past is not just the past, and bygones cannot just be bygones. The chains of our past—the traumas, the abuse, the countless lies we believed about ourselves and about God, our own sins and failures—are holding us captive to unbelief, to fear, and to physical, emotional, and spiritual limitations that we were meant to live beyond.
We’ve lived under a bombardment of attack from the enemy. Lie after lie has come at us like arrows, like those fiery darts mentioned in
Ephesians 6:16, and they’ve stuck in our hearts, threatening our families, our self-worth, our faith and perceptions of God, our integrity, and our very identities.
The problem is, when most of these arrows hit us, and by whatever means they did—some extreme and some so subtle we barely even noticed before it was too late—we were too young, too inexperienced, too ignorant, and too weak to combat those lies when they hit. Now it’s true that we cannot change our past, but we can be free from it. With God’s help, we can remove those arrows, one by one, and receive healing for the wounds they’ve left behind.
And not only does God heal us of these wounds, but He redeems them as well (
Psalm 30:11,
Isaiah 60:15-16). He takes all those things that were meant for evil, and turns them around for our good and for His glory. I love this about God. He’s the God of the universe, Creator of all things, Beginning and the End, and yet He has given us free will so that our love may be pure. And with this free will, He lets us get away with so much evil and hate and destruction. But despite everything we can do, God just rolls with the punches, so to speak, and uses each attack or offense or disruption of His will to His own advantage. This is the idea of redemption.
Webster’s Dictionary defines redemption in these ways:
1. A release from blame or debt
2. Freedom from the consequences of sin
3. Change for the better
4. The offset of a bad result to make something worthwhile
How many of us wouldn’t like to have that release, that freedom, or that change, to have a purpose for our pain, and not only that, but that we would find everything we went through to be worthwhile?
That’s what God wants to do for you. He wants to set you free from your past, to redeem your pain and suffering. He wants for you to be healed, and you must be healed, so that you can understand where you are on this journey today, and so that you can live the dreams He has placed in your heart for the future.
We’re going to explore some of these things that have wounded your past, and how to find healing and freedom from them, but understand that there’s no possible way to address everything in the scope of this website. It’s important that we look at these things, even in a broader sense (to be more inclusive), but God will need to interpret for you how each of these things applies to your own situation.
Take a moment right now, and ask the Lord to reveal these things to you, and to open the places of your heart that He wants to speak to through this site, and ask Him to interpret what you find here to make it apply directly to you. Release to Him your trust and willingness to explore these places of your heart, to feel the pain of your past, and to receive His healing and grace and redemption. Go ahead and take that time right now and give God permission to work in your heart.
Keep reading this section first, and when you're ready, click on one of the links to the right to learn how to deal with more specific issues, like anger, traua, or addiction.
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