Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 200
TRANSCRIPT
I believe most of us like to watch movies where the main character acts courageously. I think it is one of the reasons that the Marvel movies are so popular. We subtly identify with the heroic main characters because there is something deep within us that was created to live courageously. If we really desire to live a courageous life, then what is it that keeps us from walking in more courage? That is going to be the topic of this week’s podcast.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. One of my favorite movies is The Natural, starring Robert Redford. In this movie, Redford plays a gifted baseball player named Roy Hobbs who was on his way to stardom when he was mysteriously shot by a seductive woman. The movie follows Hobbs as he recovers from his injuries to return to star for the New York Knights as a middle-aged phenom. The movie, of course, ends with Hobbs hitting a dramatic home run that shatters the stadium lights to propel his team into the playoffs. The movie ends with Hobbs as the hero. I love that movie. I love seeing the good guys win over evil. I love it when the army defeats the evil enemy. Why do we love movies like that? I believe it is because inside every one of us there is a desire to do something heroic.
I was reading stories of people who lived courageously, and I ran across this inspiring story. Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and social activist. Tubman was born and raised in slavery. She was abused and beaten on a regular basis by a cruel master for most of her life. She, however, did not let her circumstances dictate her future. She took the risk and escaped from her slavery. After escaping from her cruel master, Tubman returned 13 times into the south to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, Tubman served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. Due to her courageous service to the Union Army, Harriet was posthumously awarded the rank of Brigadier General for being the first woman to lead an armed military operation in the United States. I love stories of courage. They inspire me and I hope they inspire you to step out and live boldly.
Why am I talking about courage, which if you listen to this podcast on a regular basis, is one of my favorite topics? Recently, I posted a podcast about how Hitler used the church’s passivity and silence to kill 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. It was a time when the church lacked the courage to stand up against the evil in the world; instead, it went along with the tide of popular opinion and said nothing. In 1962 we, the church, allowed prayer to be taken out of public schools. In June of 2015 we, the church, allowed Gay marriage to become legal in all 50 states. Why am I being so hard on the church of Jesus Christ? Because we are living at a time when Satan and the demonic realm are trying to force their way into our lives and if we don’t stand up against it, our world will continue to change for the worse. It is a time when we need to be courageous and stand up against some of the things that are being forced into our culture as normal. My purpose in this podcast is not to talk about the subjects that I am most concerned about, but to look at and address what keeps us from living courageously.
RTF celebrated its 35th Anniversary last October with a blowout celebration here in Mt Juliet, Tennessee. It was a wonderful time to look back at the humble beginnings of RTF in Chester and Betsy Kylstra’s garage in Florida, to the worldwide ministry that it is today. We have RTF ministers in over 20 nations and have touched the lives of people from 120 nations. That is quite amazing. To do what RTF has done, it took great courage from Chester and Betsy, the founders of RTF. It took courage for them to quit their jobs and head off to Bible College. Chester worked in the Aerospace industry; he was literally a rocket scientist, and Betsy was a very accomplished mental health professional. It took courage for them to spend the many hours to prayerfully listen to God and put together a prayer method that would set people free from the things that held them in captivity. It took courage for them to invite others to join them in this fledgling ministry. It took courage for them to put together and teach a conference on inner healing and deliverance at a time when the Body of Christ knew very little about such things. They were some of the first people to open the church’s eyes to the need for inner healing. It took courage for them to be willing to receive much criticism in the process. It took courage for them to spend the many, many hours to write the RTF training manual called Restoring the Foundations: An Integrated Approach to Healing Ministry. It took courage for them to travel around the world talking about this new ministry. It took courage for them to buy a bed-and-breakfast in Laurel Park, North Carolina, to be the world headquarters and international training center for Restoring the Foundations. It took courage for Chester and Betsy to pass the leadership of the ministry they birthed on to the next generation. These amazing people gave the body of Christ a gift that has touched the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world. It took courage!
What is courage? The dictionary defines courage as the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear. Also known as bravery. I know you are not supposed to argue with the dictionary, but I would say that courage does not take away fear. Courage and bravery cause a person to do something even in the face of fear. You can’t tell me that Harriet Tubman did not experience fear when she made those trips back into the heart of slavery to rescue her friends and family. She did not allow that fear to keep her from her mission. It would be nice to say that Chester and Betsy never experienced fear as they took the steps to lead RTF, but I am not sure that is the case. Their courage helped them to continue to take the steps they needed to take, even in the face of fear. For you and me to be able to live a bold Christian life in this culture is going to require us to let courage overcome our fear. Fear is not the problem. When we let our fear control us, that is the problem that is solved by courage.
RTF is essential to live life with courage. There are many hindrances to courage that we might inherit from our ancestors. I want to address just one. Many people have inherited the generational curse of unworthiness from their ancestors. The American culture says that you have to earn everything that you get. In fact, it tells many people that they don’t deserve even what they have. They are not worthy of having good things. Dr. Brene Brown did a study on shame, and she concluded that one of the messages shame says to people is, ‘Why do you think you can do anything great?’ In other words, you are not worth thinking that you can be great. Just think about all the systems that reinforce that idea. Sports elevate the best and put down those who can’t be the best. I was watching the National Football League Draft recently and learned that around 1,000,000 young men play high school football. Of those 1,000,000 who play high school football, only about 96,000 young men play at some level of college football. Of those 96,000 college players, only 256 are drafted by an NFL team. Of those 256 who are drafted, only about 150 actually end up on an NFL team. My point is that there are so many things in life that can make us feel unworthy. This unworthiness puts pressure on us to not live up to our God-given potential. Over time, we just believe that this feeling of unworthiness is normal and is telling us the truth. Why would a person who feels unworthy try to step up and do something courageous? So, the first thing we need to do is break this generational curse of unworthiness.
Next, we need to look at the messages we believe about ourselves that are keeping us from acting courageously. As Dr. Brown says, the big lie of shame is “Why do you think you can do anything great?” I would ask you just the opposite, “Why do you think you can’t do something great?” Look at the people in the Bible who did great things. They were just ordinary people who God used to do great things. One example is the person we call the good Samaritan. The story is found in Luke 10:33-35. A man was attacked by thieves and left half dead along the road. A Priest and a Levite came down the road and crossed over to the other side of the road and did not stop to help this man. Then a Samaritan came along. Samaritans were despised by the Jews, and there is a good chance that this wounded man was a Jew. But the Samaritan stopped and helped the man, nonetheless, and even gave money for the innkeeper to care for the man after he departed. What was the Good Samaritan’s name? We don’t know. Did he have an important position like a priest or a Levite? No. He was just an ordinary guy who God used to help someone in need. Was this act of kindness dangerous for the Good Samaritan? I believe it was because he could have been accused of robbing and beating this Jewish man. He also could have been looked down on by fellow Samaritans for helping this Jew. He was courageous enough to get outside of his comfort zone and help this disabled man.
The next thing we need to do in order to live courageously is to get healing for the wounded places in our hearts. Most of us have stepped out in faith and attempted to do something out of our comfort zone at some time in our life, and our actions backfired and went against us. When I was in the 9th grade, I played the tenor saxophone in the school band. I was actually the first chair tenor saxophone in our 9th-grade band. Oh, by the way, that was because I was the only tenor sax player in the 9th-grade band. Our church was having a talent contest of sorts, so I signed up to play a tenor sax solo. I choked under the pressure, and the solo went terribly wrong. I was humiliated! Fast forward to when I was a freshman in college, I had to give a five-minute speech for my speech class. I got so nervous that I was shaking and barely got through the speech. Years later God took me back to that horrible experience with the saxophone solo. The pain that event caused me made me scared to death of doing anything in public by myself. I could play football in front of thousands of people, and it didn’t bother me, but put me by myself on stage, and I would panic. God was so gracious to bring healing to that wounded boy’s heart, and now I speak in public for a living without fear or anxiety.
The last thing that must be dealt with in order to live courageously is to remove any demonic interference. The demons will take any and every opportunity to energize your unworthiness in order to keep you from living courageously. Satan knows that a brave and bold believer in Jesus is a threat to his kingdom operating on earth. We are powerful people, my friends. When we realize just how powerful we are, we will cause the enemy much damage. And in the process, we will live bold and courageous lives to stem the chaos and evil that is trying to be released on the earth. We don’t have to just accept that evil is growing here on earth. We can take our rightful authority as children of God and say NO to the kingdom of darkness. No, you will not have our schools. No, you will not have our children and grandchildren. No, you will not have our government.
PRAYER
Father God, would You open our eyes to see who we really are as children of God? Would You help us know the authority and power we have to keep evil from progressing in our world? Would You help us break out of our passivity and do what You told Adam and Eve to do, to tend and keep the world You gave us. I pray for each one listening to this podcast today that they would not live in unworthiness, but that they would be the powerful people You created them to be.
Thank you for joining us today on this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. If you have been blessed by these podcasts and would like to help the ministry of RTF financially, go to our website restoringthefoundations.org and click on the Donate button at the top of that page.
