Let Go Of Our Painful Past—Part 13
 
 
 
These readings will provide additional insight into the topic covered by this most recent set of blog posts:

READINGS - Part 1

I doubt we can ever put our pasts behind us when we’ve never put them before us. Yet many of us stall on the starting line of change because we fear that we’ll lose family members’ approval and affection.

I once counseled with a charming thirty-something Christian who grew up in a subtly, but profoundly, unhealthy home. She said her birth family’s motto was “family first.” I think that meant, “Ignore and don’t talk about who and what’s hurtful in this family.” An alternative translation might be: “Don’t rock the boat (with truth) even if it’s the Titanic!”

We will never begin the move from hurting to healing until we answer the question: “Whose rules rule?” The person whose rules we are living by is god to us! If, in an attempt to gain the parental seal of approval, we continue to live by the rules of hurting, hurtful parents, we will continue our hurting, hurtful ways. But if we choose to know God and put him on the throne of our lives, we will begin to live by His rules. And, as we’ve already seen, God takes truth very seriously.

I read somewhere that calling a thing by its correct name is the beginning of change. Some of us will need to begin calling our family loyalty lying, if that is its correct name. Yet, just contemplating such a genuinely truth-based approach to our entire lives, we may feel as alien in our families as salmon would be in the Sahara! Yet God and commitment to change call us to begin dealing honestly with our pasts as well as our present lives. We must face the pain inherent in becoming truth-tellers in truth-fearing families. We are foolish to expect reality-phobic family members to jump up, click their heels together, and exclaim, “Oh, goody goody. We’ve all been wondering when someone would get healthy enough to start changing so that we’d be confronted with our personal and family dysfunction and be dragged kicking and screaming into greater wholeness!” It just doesn't work that way.

In unhealthy systems, whether they're families or companies, the person who sees and speaks the problem becomes the problem. Instead of working to resolve the problem, such systems focus on removing the problem-perceiver.

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Hurt People Hurt People, Sandra D. Wilson, Thomas Nelson, pages 94-95.
 
 
 
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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.
 
 
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