Jesus reveals legal advisor’s hidden self-rejection
F knew a lot about God but did not exude much joy or hope. She was unaware that she had been suffering from a deep sense of self-rejection. Thank God that He revealed this to her so that He could free her heart and give her new life. Praise God!
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣向法律顾问显示她的自我排斥 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌向法律顧問顯示她的自我排斥)
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had the notion of God.
I went to a Catholic primary school and then started going to church as a young teenager. But it was more about rules – and obeying just the ones I wanted to obey. I became very judgmental and even bullied other Christians whom I thought had fallen below my standard of Christianity.
During my freshman year at college, I realised I was just a rule-based “Christian” and that other people actually seemed to have personal relationships with God.
I knew God exists and is real, but I felt very distant from Him.
For nearly 10 years, I tried to do everything to get closer to God, except for praying and reading the Bible because I just could not get myself to do those two things. I served at church and joined church groups, Bible studies, and classes. At one stage, I think I had Christian activities five days a week. Still, I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to God.
I felt stuck and started losing hope. When friends shared what God was doing in their lives, I would feel very hurt because I did not understand why God wasn’t doing the same in my life. Everyone could get close to God, except for me.
I started believing God did not want me or that I wasn’t chosen.
That plunged me in a bit of a spiritual depression. There was always a heaviness in my heart.
From Bible studies, I also knew I needed to forgive my mother and stop all my addictions but I didn’t know how to. I knew I needed to surrender my heart to God but didn’t know how to. I also realised that I didn’t know what love is. I felt like I didn’t love anyone – and I definitely did not love God – but I didn’t know how to.
After going through the Love the Lord course, I learnt about the strongholds that hold us back from an abundant life in Jesus Christ and that they could be torn down through repentance and confession. So, I signed up for a renewal prayer session partly out of desperation and partly giving up hope.
In the early stage of the renewal prayer, the prayer counsellors were inspired by the Holy Spirit to ask me whether I was harsh on myself and whether I have ever felt abandoned by my father. My answers to both questions were, “No!” I thought I was too easy on myself and that I’m pretty awesome actually.
I didn’t think I ever felt abandoned by my earthly dad.
So, we started the session by dealing with the generational curses running in my family instead. I confessed my parents’ and grandparents’ occult practices and cut ungodly soul-ties to their idol worship.
Then we dealt with emotional wounds from my mother.
I always knew I had issues of judgment, bitterness, and resentment towards her. My mother can be very unreasonable at times. Whenever she gets upset about something, she reacts very badly and takes it out on her children. I felt very stuck and helpless and thought, “Why me? Why am I stuck in this home with her?”
I blamed God for placing me in this family.
When I was really young, I recall her helping me study. I couldn’t memorise the content and my mother got really angry and told me to kneel before her. As we prayed, I was invited to go back to that time and release my emotions about that incident that I wasn’t able to express as a child.
I started saying some things but felt really awkward and uncomfortable. The incident was so long ago and I no longer felt any pain from it. It seemed to be a non-event. My family and I even joke about it at times. I wanted to give up but was encouraged by my prayer counsellors to just “speak by faith.” So, I continued, this time without using my own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Some shocking words came out of my mouth. Even as they formed in my head, I was thinking, “That’s not true…”
Somehow as I spoke, tears just started pouring out. I blurted out, “I’m sorry I’m not good enough.” It was shocking for me because I hadn’t realised that I actually thought that way about myself.
Afterward, I thanked God for my mother and repented for using my own strength and wisdom to try to control her outbursts. I also chose to forgive my mother for the pain she has caused to me and my family. I also repented for judging God and questioning His actions and creations and for placing me in this family.
I also learnt that when I kneeled before my mother, I was also bowing down to the ungodly spirits that were oppressing her and stealing love and joy from our family. I repented for bowing to her ungodly spiritual influences.
Exodus 20:5 NLT You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.
Then I repented for numbing myself with mindless entertainment.
I was addicted to comedic TV shows, manga, animation, podcasts and online games and was constantly reaching for my mobile phone. I learnt that by using them to numb myself emotionally and mentally, I had quenched the Holy Spirit.
In fact, my prayer counsellor had asked me to fast from media the day before my renewal prayer. When I fasted, I quickly got revelations from God the next day. I witnessed how the enemy encourages us to use our minds for senseless messages to dull our alertness to God and how fasting helps prepare us to hear from God.
1 Peter 5:8 NLT Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
During the fast, I also remembered I had participated in a high school play about a Greek goddess, Persephone.
Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and later became the Queen of the Underworld. I played the role of Persephone. It was something I had forgotten about.
As I was praying to repent, cut soul ties, and cast out any spirits related to the worship of Greek idols, I was surprised that tears started pouring out my eyes again. We are all made in our Heavenly Father’s image, and that day, I learnt that we can unknowingly take on the image of idols, even through something as innocent as a school play.
I didn’t feel anything else but shock at that time. I knew that something must have happened in the spiritual realm because there was no way that memory could have caused me any sorrow, and least of all, for tears to flow.
Lastly, I was invited to go to God’s throne room. Instead, I saw a TV, a couch and a middle-aged man in a white tank top.
I realised that it was my father.
God was showing me something that separated Him and me.
So, I was invited to go back to any significant memory with my father. This time, it was of us watching television together. Again, it felt really awkward because I didn’t even understand why it came up when I didn’t think there were any issues between us. I wanted to give up.
Then I realised God must have shown it to me for a reason. So, I prayed and said something along the lines of, “Holy Spirit, You are the One who showed me the image, so help me!”
Again, the words came out from my mouth surprised me; “Do something, dad, save our family or else our family will fall apart.”
I didn’t know I felt this way at all about my father. I had indeed felt abandoned. I prayed to forgive him for not being the hero to save the family and thanked God for him. Then, I repented for judging him.
These incidents with my mother and father made me realise how deep the deceptions in our hearts can be. Only the Holy Spirit can really understand our hearts, even better than we can.
Jeremiah 17:9 NIV The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
After renewal prayer, I didn’t feel that different. I didn’t suddenly miraculously have a deep love for God as I had hoped.
At first, Satan tried to trick me into thinking that nothing had changed.
But as I continued to fast from media, I have realised I can hear from God much better than before and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. I’ve also found it easier to get myself to read the Bible. Before, I felt huge resistance to reading it.
One night, I had another image of my father and asked God how can I love my dad better as we now live apart.
I got the feeling that we ought to re-connect on the phone more often. The same night, my dad asked me for lunch the next day. At lunch, he told me for the first time that the one thing he regrets the most was not calling us every day when he was away on business we were younger. For me, that was a definite confirmation from God and I told my dad about it.
The first night I called him, I was worried about what we would talk about. But I found out that he was buying an electric toothbrush for me, because I said I wanted to buy one during our lunch.
For the first time, I experienced an emotion which I think is what it is like to feel loved.
Then the next day, my dad ended our call by telling me he loves me, which is something he hasn’t said since my university days. I remembered it felt so awkward but yet I was able to respond naturally. All this is definitely due to God!
I definitely do not believe God does not want me anymore.
I am still just learning and processing all I have experienced, but I am positive that God is in the process of bringing me closer to Him.
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