Connecting with the Love of God

Today I want to share with you a section from my book Ending the War with Myself. Chapter 1 is entitled "Something is Wrong: Why Don't I Connect with the Love of God" The title implies there are numerous obstacles in our lives that hold us back from actually experiencing in our inner man/woman the love and grace of God.

We all know perpetual willful sin keeps us in a downward spiral of despair. When in this spiral our negative self-talk further keeps us from experiencing God's grace. Additionally we might not recognize other unknown things blocking His Grace. Following are two sequential passages delineating just one of those possible unknowns. Remember, God's grace is ALWAYS available to His children. We often block it unknowingly.

Toxic Lies Guide our Lives
Each of us was wounded in some way during our growing years, some more than others. We experience wounding in smaller or larger events at school, at home, in our neighborhood, in church, on sport teams, and in other groups. Some of the wounds we vividly remember; some are more subtle and we may not remember them at all. These events may cause us to internalize lies about ourselves. These poisonous, toxic lies silently drive our lives.

How a father treats his child is critical. Perhaps he had little personal interaction with you, but you noticed when you excelled he commended you and seemed proud of you. You might say to yourself, “For my father to love me, I must make him proud of me.” This statement gradually becomes, “To be loved, I must be successful in everything,”

We can see how toxic this false statement is when we acknowledge we can not always be successful.What happens when you are not successful? It is the "what happens when you are not successful" that causes us pain. We have a tendency to berate ourselves and when we berate ourselves, we feel emotional distress. We actually feel and believe, "I am not loved." We strive even more for success, fighting feeling unloved. The toxic lie drives our lives.

As a different example, you may have experienced a father who often slapped you, and yelled, “I wish you had never been born!” You come to believe the lie, “I am worthless and deserve to be slapped around.” This toxic lie colors all your relationships with men who continue to wound you.

According to Dr. Ed Smith, “the only authority Satan has in a Christian’s life is based on the lies we believe.” Either an authority figure tells us a lie or we tell ourselves a lie as to regarding who we really are in Christ, God’s love is just a concept in our minds. Healing takes place when the lies are exposed.

The Effects of Childhood Wounds
Accepting God’s grace has roots in these childhood wounds. As children, we learn how to treat ourselves by the ways others treat us. If perfection is expected, we expect we should be perfect. In spite of knowing, we truly cannot be perfect we try diligently anyway. Soon we begin to dislike our "imperfect selves". We try to be strong, but we feel false shame in that imperfection. We try to hide our real selves and earn acceptance so that the false self we show looks perfect.

Under all this working, earning and trying, our wounded self remains.
If the wounds we suffered are not examined and healed, they do not just go away with time. Wounds of our past adversely influence our inner lives and our current relationships.

Recent technology now allows us to understand how the brain functions. Different parts of the brain perform different functions and holds different types of memory. Understanding how our brain holds our past pain gives us reason to go on an inner journey into our hearts with God to heal our childhood wounds.

The front of the brain, called the cerebral cortex, is the area of conscious thought, perception, and logic. The outer layer of the cerebrum is composed of gray matter and forms a cap over the rest of the brain. This cerebral cortex is labeled the thinking cap. It holds and organizes information and facts and works well with numbers, but it has no feelings to go with the logic. Like Mr. Spock, a Vulcan in the television and movie series, Star Trek, who could not feel emotions, some people have so suppressed their emotions they operate almost exclusively out of the cerebral cortex. They operate in a superficial and informational kind of way.Cerebral individuals generally do not have deep intimate relationships because they are too emotionally closed down to connect with others. As an aside, there is a reason they cannot connect.

In the back of the brain, the limbic system holds our emotions, our pain, and our emotional experience memory. Sometimes referred to as the emotional brain the limbic system is the site of emotional states (anger, sadness, fear, etc.) and behavior (what we do with our emotional states). The emotional brain has no words to express its' self and has no understanding of time. Any emotional pain experienced in our growing years is still alive in the emotional brain waiting to be triggered in the present. We can "time travel" back to the pain while in the present.

The emotional brain will override the logical thinking cap every time.
The emotional brain may surprise us by causing us to overreact repeatedly. We may have little to no awareness a dynamic triggered from our childhood wounds have triggered us. These triggers control us and wreak havoc in our relationships. It feels like what is happening in our emotions is our present reality. We believe the person in front of us is intentionally doing something to us when an emotional feeling of the past triggers us. We blame the other person for our overreactions.** In reality, any heightened disproportionate response is born in the emotional memory set from a past event. However, we do not understand any of this; therefore, we judge ourselves and blame others for our bad actions.

Once we are spinning reality by judging ourselves, and blaming others, it is as if we are on automatic pilot to self and relational destruction. This formidable pattern is so pervasive; I believe Satan loves to fan the fire of our self-defeating spiritual and psychological drama. Satan can easily accomplish his objective simply by letting us fly on automatic pilot into the mountainside to crash and burn. Healing comes when the lie is exposed.

Using a mind, will and emotion paradigm, we see how these parts of the brain are centers for different contributions to healing. The mind centers in the thinking cap, holding the facts. Emotions center in the emotional brain, holding experiences as vivid emotional feelings. Our will plays a part as we choose to work or not to work in concert with God toward healing. God desires to heal this destructive cycle within us. When we over react we can choose to cooperate with God and allow Him to expose and then heal our over reactions, toxic lies and wounds.

Without accepting His grace, we will have difficulty experiencing the peace that passes understanding. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you. My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]” (John 14:27)

**You can determine if your wound is in control. You will feel and know when you are over-reacting. Something will happen that pushes you to handle the event in a child like manner. When triggered, yes the other person may have said or done something that was upsetting, but our child like over-reaction says something deep in you is touched. I use a scale of 1-10, 10 measures the strongest over reaction. One person with healthy relational skills will measure a 3-5 while when confronted with an uncomfortable situation, another person who is wounded will register a 8 to 10. This person will experience a 3 of the present event plus the 8 of the wound of the past which equals a 10; over the top.