The Deep Pain Of A Century Old Lie
By Phil Scovell
I went to bed angry. I knew it was wrong, of course, since
the Bible says not to let the sun go down on your wrath, but I
could not locate the source of my anger. That isn't exactly true
because I did know something about the anger but I thought,
foolishly, it would go away by morning if I slept on it. wrong.
when I awakened with a terrible headache the next morning,
it was a good two hours before I normally would be getting up. I
got up, took some pain medications, and waited for it to work.
As I waited for my headache to subside, I suddenly realized my
anger was still there. I prayed and asked the Lord the source of
this anger. Frankly, I thought I knew the source, but instead of
taking me to what I thought was wrong, the Lord immediately took
me to a memory that was very sad and was eleven years old. Let
me explain to you this memory so you'll have a better
understanding of how the Lord healed me from the pain and anger.
This particular memory event occurred at least eleven years
ago but as I was soon to find out, it was older than that. In
fact, it was over 100 years old.
Since my wife and I are both blind, we obviously don't
drive. Funny, though. We always ended up buying, paying for,
registering, insuring, washing, maintaining, and making the
monthly payments on all the cars we bought for our kids as they
began driving.
The first vehicle we purchase was a lemon. It broke down so
much, that I put in as much money for repairs the first year as I
did on buying the car and that was about 2200 dollars. So, every
time I climbed into the car, my ears immediately began listening
to the motor. What was going to break down next? It was a very
relaxing experience to always be worried about your car each and
ever time you got in it. A little tongue in cheek, there, of
course.
My oldest son had been driving for only two months. Some of
the nicest Christmas tree lights in Denver are within a couple of
miles of our house. One man in that neighborhood has over
100,000 Christmas lights in his yard and on his house. Well, we
had been to this neighborhood many times but never alone as a
family. This was our first time out as a family in our own car
just to see Christmas lights. It was kind of thrilling. My
oldest son had a bad attitude about it because he likely had
other plans for the evening. So he complained and moaned and
carried on like a two year old the whole time. This made me very
happy, of course, and my attitude improved by the minute as I
listened for the next clink in the engine.
Suddenly, the engine died all together and we rolled to the
curb. Now what? My oldest son immediately jumped on me for not
keeping the car in better shape. My wife was questioning me from
the back, where else, about having to have known more about what
was wrong, and I swear, my hand on the bible, my other two
younger kids were saying something about me, too. Of course, by
this point, I could have been imagining things but I was not
imagining the deep painful sadness I felt inside of me. I made a
couple of very unchristian comments about the whole kit and
caboodle of the lot, told my son to turn the blank key over, and
bingo! The engine fired, ran smooth, and we went on to see all
the Christmas lights. The only bad part was my oldest son still
griping about having to take us on a 15 minute ride. To this
day, I still don't know what he was bugged about. The only thing
that could possibly go wrong now is the Santa Clause standing out
in front of this guy's house refusing me candy as we slowly drove
by. Now, back to my anger.
So I get up early, like I said, take something for my
headache, and as I am standing at the sink, half asleep, I feel
my anger still there. Oh, shoot. I thought it would die during
the night and now it was still there. So, I do what I always do;
I prayed. "Lord," I said, "I guess there's someplace I need to
go to find the origin of this anger, so take me to the memory
where the lie is that this anger is hiding." You see, I have
learned that anger is never the problem. Anger masks the lie
which creates the anger and the lie can be anything, too.
So as soon as I ask the Lord to show me the lie, bang. I'm
back in the car at Christmas time eleven years ago and feeling
the pain of the sadness is if it were yesterday. So I said,
"Lord, this ain't it. There's no anger in this memory. I see no
lies in this memory. So let me see the first time I felt this
anger." I was closing a cupboard door as I was praying. By the
way, all I am describing to you now took about thirty seconds of
total prayer time. As I closed the cupboard door, explaining to
the Lord how He had led me to the wrong place, I heard myself
saying, "But I will never forget the pain and sadness buried deep
down inside of me as I sat in that car." I froze. I knew that
such a feeling could only mean one thing and that memory had a
lie in it and had to be healed or it would come back to bother
me. So I said, "Ok, Lord. You took me to the right place but
where is the lie in the memory because I can't see it."
The Holy Spirit began talking to me and said, "How did you
feel in the car with your family criticizing you for the car
breaking down?"
"Sad," I said flatly.
"How did you feel about the sadness?" He wanted to know.
I heard myself saying to the Holy Spirit, in complete
amazement, "I felt like a poor father."
"And how did you feel about being a poor father at that
moment," the Holy Spirit asked.
"I felt like I was a lousy provider for my own family and
thus not a good dad."
"Was that true?" the Holy Spirit ask.
Suddenly, I saw it was a lie. Somebody told me I wasn't a
good enough father. So I said, "Lord, where in my entire life
did I get the idea I was a poor and lousy father because I can't
feel it any where in my life."
At this very moment, my mind flashed backward throughout my
entire life; even back into the early days of my childhood. I
saw in front of me, a large, wall to wall, black board in a
school room which had just been wiped clean. I prayed. "Lord,
there is nothing in my life, then, which is the root of this lie
about being a lousy father. So I am stuck. I can't find the
truth. Where is it?"
The Holy Spirit then said to me, "What have I shown you
about your dad?"
I said, "I know my dad had similar feelings about his
identity but what does that have to do with me?"
the Holy Spirit said, "What else do you know about your
father?"
I said, "Well, he was born two and a half months after the
death of his own father."
"So what do you suppose your father might have felt, or
heard people talking about, concerning his birth?"
then I understood. My father thought he could not be a good
enough father, or a good enough man, because he had no father.
The Holy Spirit revealed this concept to me in an instant of
time. Further more, the Holy Spirit also impressed upon me that
my father's own dad, my grandfather, felt this same way about
himself, too. He furthermore impressed upon me that it was
passed down to my dad's generation and then ultimately to my own
generation.
when any lie is exposed by the Holy Spirit, the next step is
generally to listen for the truth of God and that's what I did.
Jesus spoke and said, "You are not a lousy father and never have
been. I am always with you."
Well, you say, that's all nice and good but it sounds like a
bunch of spiritual emotional trickery and hocus pocus to me.
Fine. You can believe whatever you wish. However, when this
thirty second conversation with the Lord was over, I had no
anger, the sadness I felt in the memory had vanished, and I was
free. This lie was over a century old, yet I was free from it by
the power of the Holy Spirit and the Healing power of the True
Lord Jesus Christ. So, as I said, believe what you wish. I'm
free from the lie.
I have learn, in praying with many people, that often, as
children, and many times as little babies, sometimes even as
little babies in the womb, they hear the worries and concerns and
feel the guilt and the grief and sadness of those around them.
If you doubt this is true, I'll give you names and phone numbers
of people who experience exactly what I am talking about with no
suggestiveness on my part. The Enemy often uses these
opportunities to implant lies in our thinking. Many decades
later, the lies are triggered by current day events and the old
emotions rush out to cause us pain. The secret? Instantly turn
to the Lord and ask Him to show you the source. You may discover
as did I, it is more than a century old.
End Of Document
Safe Place Fellowship
Phil Scovell
Denver, Colorado - Mountain Time Zone
Phone: 303-507-5175
Web: WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM
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