by Catherine Fabiano
We all have an inheritance from the generations past…blessings and curses… strengths and iniquities. There are no perfect families, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Romans 3: 23
Father God has a plan for human development. Unfortunately, we human beings have not understood it. For generations we have “leaned on our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5) and as a result have made grave errors that have caused serious deficits and wounding to generations of God’s children, including ourselves. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” Hosea 4:6
Many of us, troubled by our struggles in life, wonder why we are the way we are. The truth is that we have unmet needs and emotional wounds from our early years which have a lingering impact on our lives. Father God knows each of us intimately and understands our need. He is the answer to every heart cry. He longs to heal us and redeem all that was lost. Whatever wounds we have suffered, or inflicted upon others, Father God will have the last word, if we are willing to seek Him for our healing and restoration.
“…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God Who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.” Phil 2: 12-13.
A lady from Asia shared her story: “In His gentleness, Jesus showed me the roots to my incomprehensible anger towards my mom. He showed me the roots to the inner vows I made: to be independent, to never marry because marriage is useless. It all stems from the same developmental stage where my mom had constantly voiced and impressed upon me that no one is trustworthy, and we need to fight for our own survival.
He is slowly and gently piecing things together for me, showing me the roots of my issues, and walking with me in my healing. I felt I had a breakthrough in connecting the head knowledge of God’s love to my heart – encounters with Jesus that bridged my head to my heart.”
Jesus made provision for all of our needs through salvation. In the original Greek, the word used for “salvation” means healing, health, wholeness, deliverance, well-being, safety, being made whole, soundness and eternal life. As Christians we often overemphasize eternal life and neglect to lay hold of the healing and deliverance so needed in this life. One practical aspect of this benefit of salvation is experiencing the healing the Lord provides to restore us to wholeness.
There are two ways in which the experiences of our early life hinder us from becoming mature.
The first is through unmet developmental needs. If, in our infancy and childhood, some of our needs remained unmet, we enter adulthood lacking in some of the resources we need to become a mature person. We cannot give what we have not received. Our neediness not only hinders us in our own life but it impoverishes our capacity to give to the next generation.
The second way in which we are inhibited in our maturing process is by the wounds inflicted on us through parents, caretakers and other people who had a formative influence in our life. These negative influences, sown as seeds in our early months and years of life, come to harvest in our adult life as fears, pain, shame, insecurities, character issues, sin and cyclical problems. The wound causes a lie to be planted into our hearts, perverting our belief system. This harvest has a debilitating effect on our lives, frustrating us and often tripping us up in our quest for maturity. We get stuck and find ourselves confronting the same issues over and over again. This continues until we get to the “root cause.” The Lord promises to rid us of these “roots” in our lives.
“Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.” Matt. 15:13
The Father greatly desires to redeem and restore our families…and future generations. This can only happen as we allow His healing and redemption in our lives.
Ephesians 4: 11-16
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.Romans 12:2
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
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