A few months ago I wrote on Facebook about how some people spiritualize sick behavior. I was asked to explain.
Spiritualizing sick behavior is something I was very familiar with. I probably still do it sometime, but I catch it pretty quickly now. I am certainly not perfect at it, but I am much better than I used to be.
I have watched myself in the past snowballing downwards and now I see my friends getting worse in their lives because instead of taking responsibility for their part in bad situations they either blame the devil or the other person involved. It doesn’t matter how many times they go around the same circle it is always someone else’s fault.
I can tell you from experience that it is not easy to face yourself and say that I have this problem, or worse I am the problem in this situation.
But facing it is so much easier than spending our lives feeling and acting like the victim of everyone and everything else. Believing we are always the victim is really the pits.
It feels really horrible when the same sick situations keep happening in our lives. It is so easy for Christians to blame the devil for trying to destroy us and it is even easier to blame the other person involved.
If everything is always someone else’s fault or the devil’s, then we just keep creating the same situation over and over again. We don’t do it on purpose, of course. No one would purposely try to do the horrible things that keep happening to us but we do it to ourselves just the same.
It is not until we can look at ourselves and see what our part is in a situation that things will begin to change. Always blaming the other guy will keep us stuck.
Another thing people do to keep from looking at themselves is to set boundaries to keep themselves safe. It seems like when we set boundaries against unsafe people that it is a good thing, and it is definitely a step in the right direction, but if we set boundaries and still don’t take responsibility for our part of the problem in the relationship, we might feel safer but we won’t get better.
I was asked by a pastor many years ago where was my responsibility in the situation that I went to him about. I looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language to me. What was my responsibility! I had no idea what he was talking about. I got mad at him and thought he was lacking compassion for me. I went to him with a big problem and I couldn’t believe that he said that to me. I think that was the last time I spoke to him. At the time I didn’t realize what it meant to take responsibility for my part. I was clueless!
Spiritualizing sick behavior will keep us stuck. We have to quit blaming the devil, and other people being used by the devil if we are ever going to grow up and get out of the hamster wheel of the same thing happening to us over and over.
The devil doesn’t have to follow us around creating these situations over and over, because we do it all by ourselves.
Why was I so afraid of feeling my own pain and dealing with things. I don’t understand why I was so afraid of feeling emotions. I treated feelings like they were the plague. I was terrified of them and I didn’t even know it.
What was even worse is that when I did decide to look at myself it was with my head, and then I looked at myself and called myself bad names. The very worst thing I did to myself was to beat myself up for messing up. It was actually worse for me than not dealing with it at all.
Telling myself that I shouldn’t put up with things and that I am stupid for doing so just made me sicker. Saying to myself that I should know better than to do whatever I did, was a total waste of time and it made me sicker. It was tormenting to do this to myself and it helped nothing at all.
All of this is really a heart matter and not a head matter. It is all about the heart! We must look at our hearts. We must look at the lies we have been believing and deal with the damage that believing those lies has caused me. It will probably hurt, but if we stay with the heart it will bring good things. Feelings will not kill us. Letting our hearts feel the hurt will bring healing. Letting ourselves feel with Jesus will bring healing and intimacy with Him.
We need to learn to stay in the now with God and bring all the pain into the now with Him by feeling it and releasing it to Him. We need to accept our part, ask God to show us what our part is, feel it in our hearts and give it to God to deal with and heal.
We need to open our broken hearts to Him. Cut open the infected heart and let the puss run out to Him. Open our hearts and let Him scoop out the mess.
Be quick to look at our own hearts instead of the other guy. Trying to figure out the other guys motives will keep us stuck. Trying to figure out anything will keep us stuck.
We must quit being afraid of our hearts and feelings. We must open our hearts to our Father with the reality of who we really are in there and who He really is. He won’t be shocked. He already knows about us and all that we are. He is in there waiting for us to give it all to Him. We don’t have to know or understand it, we just need to feel it and give it to Him. I learned that if I was in my head reasoning then I couldn’t be feeling. Relax in Him.
Let us come to Him with a broken and contrite heart! He loves us and doesn’t want to see us going through the hamster cage scenario anymore. I promise you, it is possible to get out of that cage! We just have to decide!