The greatest freedom in life comes from knowing our direction and making progress toward our destiny. The leverage to make an adjustment and redirect our course depends on knowing where we’re going. The sweet spot comes when we add the dimension of knowing where God is going, and sense the invitation into the desires He already put in our heart. It’s revolutionary.
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matt 6:30-33 NASU
Roots – The greatest shortcoming in the various forms of Christian counseling or secular psychiatry is its focus on the problems. With a little training, it’s relatively easy to connect present dysfunctions in people with roots in their past experiences. The problem is that making those connections isn’t particularly helpful. It usually feels like condemnation on the receiving end. People know that they have problems. Explaining why they have those problems just reinforces their sense of being hopeless.
For example, we had a significant emphasis on inner healing in the 90’s. One of our favorite sayings was, “If you’ve got the fruit, you’ve got the root.” The thought was that all present undesirable behavior has roots in something specific in our past. We would make those connects and ask the Lord to heal them and ask the person to let them go… often through forgiveness. As a group we drifted toward being introverted, and we were prone to analyzing one another… judgmentally.
Here’s the missing ingredient – Our hearts think logically. We won’t let the “old” go until we have a good reason. The reason is always tied to seeing something better in our future that will justify letting go of our comfortable, dysfunctional past… It’s a trade. It is helpful to make those past connections, but until we make a prophetic connection with our future, change will just be a mental theory with which our heart won’t cooperate. Christians can become very disconnected when we have a religious, mental picture of how we should behave, with a heart motivated in a different direction. We become double-minded and unstable.
So… when we help other or turn corners in our own lives, there are four simple steps to watch for.
- Timing – Is the timing right? We all have to want to change before there is any possibility. You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
- Past Roots – We do need to find the roots that cause the wrong behavior. They can be habitual, emotional, soulish, compulsive… even demonic. The point is that we are not in control of how we are acting for a reason (a root). Finding that reason is part of the process. The Lord often has to help us to pull back the curtain to see it. We can all see the behavior, but the connections with the past are often hidden far beneath the surface.
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Heb 12:15 NIV
- Prophetic Future – The most important step is future. God has written something in the hearts of every one of us that we will choose if we can identify it. We need God’s help to identify this aspect, as well. When we do touch the future that God wrote in someone’s heart, it resonates in an unmistakable way. I give myself permission to explore a variety of prophetic guesses (mine or theirs) and just watch for the resonance in their heart. It’s much more an experience in God’s presence than a logical observation. In hindsight, it is always logical and makes perfect sense.
- The trade – The last part of this “experience” with the Lord is a heart decision to let go of the past and trade up for our present and future role in the Kingdom. That heart decision is a foundation to align our hearts and minds toward the bright future that God has for us. Now it flows naturally and it’s fun. It’s not religious self-discipline that we impose on ourselves like a diet. It really is walking out a dream come true, knowing that we are working with our Father.
Once that trade is in place, we can start planning the new direction and give our minds a job to figure out the details of how to make it happen. Things like business plans, cash flow and networking are tools to help articulate this course. When problems arise, we just ask the Lord to help us through the process again and make the mid-course corrections – it’s normal. That’s how life in Christ works. It’s very practical and it makes a huge difference in business and wealth creation…. No more self-sabotage. We connect with our own hearts, and now we can connect with others at a different level, too. Less superficial, more transparent and more results.
We use a Heart Plan to help release the genius in all of God’s people… when the timing is right.
The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. Prov 20:5 NIV
