Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 147
TRANSCRIPT
How many of you listening are leaders of a business or a ministry? As you already know, one of the major issues affecting ministries and businesses is people. Why? People bring their issues with them into your business and ministry. We all bring our hurts and wounds, our insecurities with us into our positions. It is these issues that hinder the functioning of our staff, not that we have the wrong people. We just have normal people with baggage they bring with them.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. In this podcast I want to talk about one of the biggest hindrances to your business’s success and that is interpersonal conflict among your staff. I heard it said that when fishermen don’t fish, they fight. When good people bring their hurts and wounds into your business, they will fight and become less productive.
Let me give an example. Let’s say that you assign Cassie to be the team leader for a project. Cassie, who is very competent, comes to the staff meeting with a plan for this project. Cassie has an underlying issue with insecurity, and she covers her insecurity by appearing to be ultra confident in front of the staff. She takes charge and begins to assign tasks to the other team members. Because she is covering her insecurity, she comes across stronger than necessary. She assigns a task to Max. Max is frustrated already because he thought he should have been put in charge of this project. Out of his woundedness, Max feels like she is being controlling so he becomes resistant to this assignment in order to protect himself. He starts listing all of the reasons why this will not work. Due to his resistance, Cassie feels that Max resistance is a threat to her leadership, and she becomes angry in order to get Max on board with the assignment. Out of her anger, she aggressively tries to defend her assignment, to which Max gets more resistant and uncooperative. What is happening is that two wounded people are operating in such a way as to protect themselves and no good communication is happening. These two are unwittingly being used by the enemy to keep this project from being successful.
People are plagued by issues that come in many different forms, but all of those forms that plague people have their roots in four problem areas. We inherit some of these issues from our family through our bloodlines. For example, most people who struggle with fear and anxiety have inherited fear and anxiety from their ancestors. Some of the fear and anxiety is passed along through what you inherit, and some is from the environment you were raised in. For example, if your mother was fearful and spoke things like “Be careful” on a regular basis, you would have pricked up that fear from her words. You also will inherit fear from her through your bloodline that will cause you to be fearful and you are not even sure why you are afraid. Our friend Misty can’t sleep at night without having a light on in the room. She also will not go to new places by herself. She is also afraid to talk to new people. Where did all of that fear come from? She inherited this fear from her ancestors who were also very fearful. Her mother and her grandmother were plagued by fear.
Another way that issues can hinder a person’s life is through what they believe. We don’t live our life out of what we think. We live out of what we believe. This is especially true when the pressures of life set in. When things are going along smoothly, we can operate out of what we think. But when stress or pressure hits, we go below our conscious thoughts to what we really believe. For example, when things are going along smoothly, we might live out of the thought that God is my provider, and I trust Him. But when the bill comes in and you don’t have the money to pay it, and you need money for a medical procedure, and the hot water heater quits working, what belief comes to the surface then? That’s when we realize that we don’t believe that we trust God, we only had the thought we could.
Another issue that can cause struggle in a person’s life is the damage done by hurtful events. We store those hurts in the memories of that event. For example, Kevin was woken up in the middle of the night as an 8-year-old boy to his house being totally engulfed in flames. He woke his parents up and everyone got out of the house safely. Yet Kevin has a hard time sleeping at night due to the fear of that happening again. Where is the fear? It is housed in that memory that gets triggered during the night. What needs to be healed is contained in that memory. Trying to relieve the struggle through counseling or therapy will only help Kevin know how to cope with the fear. Only by going into that memory and allowing Jesus to bring His healing to where the fear actually resides will Kevin be totally set free.
The last issue that causes struggle is the realization that demons are real, and their purpose is to energize the other three problems to empower them to keep causing destruction in a believer’s life.
The good news is there is a solution to these problems. This solution will provide many benefits for your ministry or business by providing freedom and healing to your employees. Employees that are healed and set free are more productive, have less interpersonal conflict, are happier and more content. To put it bluntly, they are better employees.
God gave a revelation to Chester and Betsy Kylstra 35 years ago that when you minister to four problem areas during one ministry time, people receive lasting healing and freedom. One pastor we know said that before RTF he spent a lot of time dealing with staff issues, but after his staff went through RTF ministry, they are more productive doing the work of advancing the Kingdom.
The brilliance of RTF ministry is that these four problems areas must be dealt with in an integrated manner to receive complete freedom. What do I mean by an integrated manner? Let me first describe these four problems and then describe how they are intertwined with each other.
We all have ancestors who have sinned, and according to Exodus 20:5 the iniquity from these sins is passed down to the third and fourth generations. Exodus 20:5 says, “you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,” This verse is repeated in three other places almost word for word. We know that when God says something once, it is important. When He says something several times it must be very important for us to pay attention to. The reason I believe God wants us to pay attention to this iniquity that is passed down from our ancestors is because this iniquity puts pressure on us to sin in the same manner as our ancestors. Iniquity is the propensity to sin that is in our bloodlines. We inherit many types of iniquity from our ancestors. What are some examples of this iniquity? We have never found someone who struggles with sexual sin that could not point back to an ancestor who also participated in sexual sin. That is a very outward example of iniquity putting pressure on the following generations. But there are many other sins that are not as obvious, like the sin of control. Or the sin of unworthiness. Or the sin of performance. Plus, many other sins that come down the family line and put pressure on the following generations to walk in those same sins. This pressure has been on you since conception, so it is difficult to even recognize these things as sin. It has just become normal for you. People don’t understand how much pressure they are under to sin until the pressure is removed.
The second problem area that must be dealt with is the lies we believe. Romans 12:2 says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Why did God have Paul write this? Because God knows that our minds have been conformed to the thinking of this world which is contrary to the Kingdom of God. These lies that we believe are usually about God, about other people, and about ourselves. Some of the most powerful lies we believe are about ourselves. They usually target our identity because the enemy knows that if he can twist our identity so that we don’t believe what God says about us, we are going to be less effective in the Kingdom. A believer who knows who they are as a child of God is the greatest threat to the kingdom of darkness. These lies are usually formed from experiences we have had in life. Cassie, in our example above, believed that no one is going to listen to what she has to say. She developed that belief because she was the youngest child in her family and her brother and sister put her thoughts and opinions down all the time. So, for her to be heard, she had to get aggressive and loud. In the staff meeting she reverted to the pattern she developed as a child of being aggressive and loud in order to be heard. Max grew up being told what to do all the time by his parents. As he got older, he determined that he was not going to let anyone force him to do something he didn’t want to do. Thus, when Cassie told him what he was going to do, he reverted to his typical pattern of becoming resistant and uncooperative. They each brought their hurts and wounds into this staff meeting.
Another problem area that must be dealt with is the wounds of the heart. What am I talking about when I talk about wounds of the heart? Let me give you a personal example. When I was 13 years old and trying to show that I was becoming a man, I offered to carry an antique leaded glass chandelier that my Mom had just bought from the car into the house. This was quite an expensive and heavy chandelier made of antique glass and led. I was a big 13-year-old who wanted to prove that I was becoming a man. On the way into the house, I stumbled and banged the chandelier against the door frame and broke several of the glass panels. I was humiliated and felt like such a failure, and I was filled with self-contempt and loathing. For the next 30 years, anytime I would make a mistake and let people down, that memory of breaking Mom’s special chandelier was triggered causing the same feelings of self-contempt and loathing. You see, it wasn’t the mistakes that I made in the present that were so hard to deal with. It was the wound that happened when I was 13 that was being triggered again and again. Freedom and healing came when I received RTF ministry and Jesus brought healing to that wounded 13-year-old boy’s heart. My dad had that chandelier repaired and it looked as good as it had prior to being damaged. And to my parents’ credit, that event was never brought up again.
Getting our hearts healed is vital for us to live in the victory that Jesus died to give us. Max had been wounded over and over again by his parents because they continually told him what to do. There was not just one wound in his heart, but he experienced many woundings. When something triggers those wounds, like Cassie did by telling him what to do, he reacts and tries to protect himself by becoming resistant. If Max would get those wounds of his heart healed, he will be able to receive direction from others like Cassie without the negative reaction. He is not actually reacting to Cassie’s leadership as much as he is reacting to the wounds of the past.
The final problem area that must be dealt with is the demonic that is energizing this conflict. I can only imagine the delight that the demonic gets when it can hinder and frustrate the plans of God. There are times when the demonic can actually sidetrack the plans of God through causing conflict and strife in God’s people. Just look at all of the conflict and division between denominations that keep them from working together to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. As people get freedom and healing from the three problem areas we have talked about, then the demonic has no legal right to be involved. The demonic can only influence people where they have a legal right to do so. Take those legal rights away through receiving healing and freedom, and the demonic no longer has legal access to your life and is quite easy to get rid of using your authority as a child of God.
The more healing and freedom employees get, the better employees they become. These employees will become more joyful and get along with each other better. The more this happens, the more businesses and ministries will fulfill the plans and purposes God has for each one of them.
PRAYER
Father God, You have given each of us a purpose in this life. You have also made a way for us to get the healing and freedom we need in order to fulfill that purpose. Would You show each of us anyplace we are cooperating with the demonic to keep us operating from these four problem areas. Thank you for the freedom that is available through our relationship with Jesus.
