Critical spirit

As many of you know, if you've been reading this blog longer than a week, I've been struggling with some emotional, spiritual, deep questions and issues. I've been on the fence between feeling depressed and feeling o.k. for 3 weeks or so. The best way I can describe it is that I've asked God to expose the roots to some of the symptoms in my life. When it came to light about 5 weeks ago that I was truly stuck in some places of life where I've been trying to see change for years, I made a decision to seek God until this thing is resolved and I am unstuck. I've gone back to STEPS, am attempting to have daily time with God - because I need Him so desperately each day - try to follow the things the Holy Spirit leads me to do/pray/read/etc. . . and to remain in a place of stillness rather than striving. In the process, I have felt very weighted down emotionally. I have hope because I believe God called me to this season, and He will have the victory, but it's hard work. Kind of like swimming upstream through molasses.

The other day I was talking with a friend about all of this, and she says, "How do you look for the root?" I don't really know the answer to her question, except to pray, ask God to expose it, and then wait for Him to answer. Truly. A blind spot is called that because it can't be seen. But for the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit, we would all stay stuck forever. On my journey of the past few weeks, I've found that I have days where nothing big happens. I feel heavy - even depressed - it's difficult to do even the simplest tasks for my family, and I fall into bed at night, weary and discouraged. It's nights like those when I ask, "Is this just all psycho-babble?" "Am I making it all up?" "Could I be fine if I just snapped out of it?" Then I remember the stuck spots in my life and I think, "No, be diligent in stillness Jennifer, because this is not all imaginary."

Other times, I have these "a-ha" moments, where God shines his light on a tiny portion of the puzzle, one that I haven't seen clearly before, and I have opportunity to look in a new direction. One of those moments I mentioned in an earlier post - the awareness that I have a lot of rejection and fear of rejection in my past. Wanting to be sure I stay still long enough for God to expose and heal all of that junk. Another one of those "a-ha" moments was just this Sunday night.

I was doing my STEPS study, and it asked a question like, "Who do you resent? Who will you not let off the hook?" My first thought was, "No, I don't think I have anyone. I've forgiven all the major ones. . . I think I'm good." Then the Holy Spirit nudged me to get out a dictionary and look up resent/resentment. It said something about feeling keen displeasure. So I changed the question to read, "What do I feel keen displeasure about?" All the sudden this list of current stuff came spewing out of me. To borrow a friend's phrase, I had a nice "basket of grievances." I was shocked. I knew I had thought each of those thoughts, but I had no idea that if I put them all in one place it would be such a clear picture of a critical spirit. UHHGG!!

The not-so-funny thing is that at the top of my list of grievances was taking issue with people who are critical of others. Isn't that just like human nature - sinful human nature - the very thing I took issue with was the thing I had going on, in a big way, in my own life. I've done enough personal spiritual work to know that the first step to defeating the critical spirit in my own life is to forgive the same spirit in those by whom I've been offended. I need to let them off the hook.

So yesterday found me on the couch of my dear friend who has walked me through several "stuck" spots. We pray together, take authority in the spiritual realm, and I walk out with new freedom. It's awesome!! It's humbling, but very, very good. When I say "take authority in the spiritual realm," let me remind you of Ephesians 6:10-18. It talks about our battle not being against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of this dark world. So when I recognize a stuck spot in my life, and God shines His light on the root - it's often true that the root can be named with a spiritual name. A spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3), a spirit of fear (1 John 4), a rebellious spirit (think of the nation of Israel in Old Testament times). . . When my friend and I pray, I start by praying out loud and speaking out forgiveness those who have offended me. Choosing to forgive. Often times, it has to do with patterns in the generations of my family before me. (Generational sins, see Leviticus 26: 39-42, and/or Jeremiah 32:7-19) As I pray, my friend listens and prays with me, as well as writing down any spiritual roots she recognizes.

Let's just take the current example of the critical spirit. Once I've recognized it in myself, I choose to forgive it in others, and then I confess where I have chosen to enter into the same spirit. I take responsibility for my actions and thoughts, and repent of them. We then together renounce the spirit, take authority in the name of Jesus, and close the door to it's influence in my life.

See, when I let unforgiveness roost in my heart, and take offense at others, I am opening the door to the very spirit that offends me. I give that evil spirit authority in my life, because of the root of bitterness and resentment that I either don't/can't see, or refuse to let go of. So when I make a choice to forgive and release the resentment, and I repent of my sinful actions and thoughts, I am graced with the authority of Jesus now at work on my behalf, unleashed because God loves to work in a forgiving heart.

So yesterday we did the process - with several threads of resentment, grief, woundedness, fear - and prayed against this critical spirit. As we were doing so, it became obvious to me that this is the spirit I've been battling in Josiah as well. My hugest parenting struggle is how negative Josiah has been toward Titus. It has seemed as if everything Titus said or did was corrected, criticized or put-down by Josiah. And then I was harping on Josiah to be positive - hardly a successful way to encourage kind words!! But as we were praying, it smacked me over the head like a 2x4, that I was the one who was giving the critical spirit authority in our home and in my family line, by hanging on to offense, and harboring critical thoughts myself. As we prayed, I found hope that perhaps by me recognizing and confessing my sin, I might actually influence the peace in our home more than all the "harping" I could ever imagine.

This entire, very long, post was all to be able to simply tell you this: in the last 28 hours, since my prayer time on my friend's couch, I have heard very little negativity from Josiah. Either he is saying much less, or I am noticing and taking offense at much less, either way it's a miracle!

While it's relatively new to me, and probably to several of you, this idea of praying with authority, through forgiveness, in the spiritual realm, and breaking off the power of past sins - even generational sins - has some real freedom in it. I'm not a proponent of emotional and spiritual digging just for digging' sake, but if you find yourself stuck - over and over again in the same places - I highly recommend taking Ephesians 6 to heart, and asking God to expose any spiritual strongholds that might have the authority to keep you stuck until you deal with it.

Breaking free, one prayer at a time. Thanks for sticking with me. I do realize the perspectives posts have been quite heavy lately. I'm trusting that they will take a turn a lighter direction at just the right time. Until then, I suspect that I'm not the only one walking through these types of deep waters. Be encouraged, our God is a redeeming, renewing, freedom-giving God!!