Roots of Bitterness - 7

Yesterday and with another couple pages this morning, I wrote extensively about my negative context about this word “discipline” that triggers me so much here in Hebrews 12. I am glad that it is triggering me in a way because it allows me opportunity to access the sources of those triggers more easily. And accessing the roots is exactly what this whole study is all about. I want to expose all the roots of bitterness in my life so that God's healing revelations of truth can replace the millions of lies that riddle the field of my heart.

In fact, now that I have put it that way, possibly one of the reasons that my heart is so hard is because it is so root-bound from all these roots of bitterness. These roots are so extensive and prolific that they have grown into a hard mass under cover of the subconscious and uprooting them myself would mean certain death to my soul. It is only the healing grace, truth and love of my Creator who has the ability, skill and compassion needed to deal effectively with my root-bound condition of overgrown bitterness.

I stop right now and dialog with God about this whole process.

God, I am writing this all for you, not just for me. I have been writing all these things for several days as Your Spirit has been bringing them to the surface as honest expressions of whatever I see and feel in my heart directly to You more than to anyone else. I do not write these things to impress anyone or to just vent my anger and frustration for venting sake. That may have a limited relieving effect on my heart but I need much, much more than just relief from inner pressure, I need multitudes of lie-based beliefs exposed and replaced with Your love and the real truth about reality and how You really feel toward me.

I also need Your truth and perspective on my past and my relationship with my parents, teachers and other people who caused so much of this pain and confusion inside of my heart and mind. I want to see them from Your perspective and with Your feelings so that I can become free of any residual resentment and bitterness that may continue to poison my life, my perceptions and those around me. I do not revisit these memories and feelings in order to cast blame on others or put them down, for I realize, at least with my head, that they too, were victims of abuse, lies and tragic childhoods that instilled so much confusion and bitterness into their own hearts that they simply later passed on to me, just as I have done the same to so many others, especially my children and wife.

God, this is a huge mess You have here, but that does not overwhelm You in the slightest. I just need to verbalize these things so that I can come closer to seeing things as You see them. Please continue this process, continue to fill my mind and heart with the presence of Your Spirit to flush out, resolve and heal even more than You are now. I am hungry for real heart-connections, not only with You but with other people as You arrange them in my life. I want to grow up in Christ and become more mature and less damaging to those around me. I want to be filled with the freedom and joy and peace that You have designed for me to thrive in as I live my life in Your presence.

I have noticed that there is a distinct shift in my thinking and feelings whenever I make the transition from saying “I want to...” to thinking or saying “I choose to...”. There is sometimes a legalistic guilt-trip voice in my head that demands that I comply immediately to this conviction or there will be consequences that I won't like and I have to resist that. But at the same time I find that I need to consciously move past the stage of expressing what I want to do to the act of choosing deliberately with my mind to move in that direction. I believe that in the supernatural realm it is a very important distinction that makes a significant difference in how the powers in that realm are allowed to relate to us.

When I stay stuck in the “wanting” faze of my experience it allows the dark forces to continue to exploit my lack of firm decision and fill me with doubts and fears. But whenever I state unequivocally my decision to deliberately choose to do what I want to see or move toward, I am laying claim to the covenant promises and commitments that God has provided for my success and that allows the forces of light to protect my heart and mind from much of the access and harassment that I may encounter in my neglect to announce that firm decision.

So I choose today to place myself under the shadow of the Almighty and the accompanying protections of His covenant. I openly invite His Spirit to dwell in me and make my heart His prayer room and throne. I surrender my rights to Jesus as well as bringing Him my fears, problems and confusion. I hereby give God unlimited permission to do whatever work or experience He desires to do with me in any way He chooses for today and to the extent possible for the rest of my life.

I want to not only become free from the heavy baggage from my past that is being exposed here in Hebrews 12 but I also choose to learn, especially at the heart level, what the real experience is of living within the context of God's good discipline. I am not so much interested in finding someone else's teachings on this right now as I am in hearing from God directly what He desires for me to know about what it means to be His son. If all I have now is messed-up distortions of this concept from my past, then I now want to know the truth about what healthy, life-producing discipline really looks like and feels like. I want to hear directly from God through His Word and any other means He chooses through which to communicate His truth to me about this issue. I want to lay aside, to become free from, to have all tentacles disattached from, all the false ideas in my heart about discipline and to be completely retrained and rewired so that I can relate properly to the discipline that comes from the undiluted goodness of God's heart.

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