Episode 83: When Is Our Trauma Incurable?

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Well, this podcast, dad, came about, I was talking to a lady who, I was just listening to her actually.

John McLarty: It’s a good thing to do.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. For those of us who like to talk a lot, it’s sometimes a challenge. I know you don’t think so.

John McLarty: That’s why I love doing these podcasts, Kim, it’s a father daughter conversation just down home, but it’s from the Word of God. So 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: It’s good.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I was listening to this lady and she’d been through a lot of trauma and she was a believer. And I asked her, I said, When do you think you’ll be healed from this trauma? Because it evidently had been going a long time. And I really am a firm believer that there are some times that the Holy Spirit just causes me to ask questions that I’m not even really aware of the importance of the question.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And because, you know, when we’re asking God to guide us because as I was listening to her, I honestly was feeling a lot of empathy and compassion for her, but I didn’t,  you know, you just aren’t going to say something and magically make somebody better, right? But sometimes I think

John McLarty: Yeah, and we’ve talked about this. Trauma is legitimate.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: I just lost a dear friend to a tragic death. But yeah, there are times when trauma is, people let it go on. I mean, if it’s like, whatever, whatever the size of the trauma, but still a year or two later, and they’re still dysfunctional. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. That’s a good word.  Well, and especially if that trauma keeps us from being able to love and trust and reach people and carry out the great commission and glorify God. And I wasn’t at all implying this with this lady. I just asked the question, when do you think that you’re going to be healed? And she thought about it and she says, you know ,and I could tell she’s being very transparent. She goes, I don’t know.

John McLarty: That’s an honest answer.

Kimberly Faith: It was an honest answer. A lot of times, and of course, we just went on and we’re talking about other things. But of course, later I was reflecting on that and just praying for her, but also just thinking about this,  is the trauma because we’ve all experienced trauma. I mean, if you’ve lived through childbirth you know? 

John McLarty:  I’ve never done that.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Well, I’m talking about you did come, you know, you were born.

John McLarty: Oh, okay.

Kimberly Faith: There’s that trauma. Right?

John McLarty: I don’t remember it, but I’m sure I got  through it.

Kimberly Faith: We’re born in travail. And of course, whether it’s bumping our head or falling flat on our face as a toddler or whatever, we have got lots of trauma.

John McLarty: Life is full of trouble.

Kimberly Faith: It is, it is. 

John McLarty: From minor to tragic, like this friend of mine.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: I felt gut punched for a week.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. And so I was talking about this to the Lord and it was really interesting. I haven’t read the book of Micah for a while. And he led me to Micah and the book of Micah, and I just want to read these verses from Micah 1:8-9. And it says, the Bible says, Therefore I will wail and howl. I will go stripped and naked. I will make a wailing like the jackals and a mourning like the ostriches, for her wounds are incurable. For it has come to Judah, it has come to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. Of course, the prophet is talking about, he’s mourning the nations of Israel and Judah.

John McLarty: This sounds like something Jeremiah could have said.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. And of course, you know, they were both mourning the same thing.  And that is the wounds of the nations of Israel and Judah. They were self inflicted wounds through idolatry, injustice to, you know, they’re treating people unjustly, rebellion from God. We talked about this a little bit, I think, when we talked about the book of Jeremiah, about how just the idol worship that had been actually endorsed by the religious leaders.

John McLarty: And they would not stop it.

Kimberly Faith: They would not stop it.

John McLarty: And God gave them off ramp after off ramp after off ramp.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. But Micah the prophet makes this statement. I mean, it just made me stop. It says, For her wounds are incurable. And it kind of just made chills go down my spine to think about having incurable wounds. I mean, what a horrible place to be, bleeding out on the street of life with no cure, watching your life waste away. And it kind of brought me back to the question that I asked this lady about trauma because I think it applies to all of us. We all endure trauma, and some of it is our own walking away from God, like the tribes of Israel and Judah. Sometimes it’s just things that happen to us because other people are evil or because the world is groaning under the weight of sin, right? Everybody listening to this podcast lives in a fallen world. We’re each bleeding from countless wounds, right? The question is, are our wounds incurable like the prophet Micah was talking about?

John McLarty: Good question to ponder.

Kimberly Faith: I think it is. Because we have just a plethora of promises from God’s word about Him being the healer of our souls, right? And we’re not going to eliminate poverty. We’re not going to eliminate wars. We’re not going to eliminate divorces. We’re not going to eliminate having orphans and generations of just violent scarred people, right? That’s not going to be eliminated until someday when God wipes away all tears. So we live in this world, but do we have to be crushed by it? That’s really the question.

John McLarty: Yeah. I’m just thinking here, and I’m maybe jumping ahead, but the wounds are incurable. But that’s because Israel would not give up their idolatry. They could have as a nation.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: But they didn’t. But therefore, that level of stubbornness and fingers pointing right back at us, that level of stubbornness was evidently so entrenched that it was incurable. They had to go into exile.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. And their temple was destroyed, I mean, but the whole, you think about it, I mean, this isn’t just wounds caused by war or death. This is wounds caused by loneliness, mental health crisis, broken marriages, addictions, whether that’s addictions to pornography or just your cell phone screen, rampant anxiety, this sense of emptiness that pervades our culture, despite all the abundance around us. So these wounds are not, it’s a common experience, right? And as I was thinking about this and asking the Lord just to show me what you want to show me from God’s word, I thought about my own walk with God. And even though I’m born again, the fact is, when I let any sin dominate my mind and my heart, sin wounds us. We can never embrace sin without it wounding us. And if I allow it to remain, the wound won’t heal.

And so, you know, the Lord just showed me a couple, this is so incredible to me that there’s two kinds of sins: sins of omission, which is a failure to do what’s right, and the sense of commission, which is doing what’s wrong.

John McLarty: Things we do.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And he gave me this example. If I had cancer, to just use this example of commission and omission, a sin of commission would be to inject more cancer into myself. Intentionally, you say, I’m going to put more cancer in my body. Let me just inject some cancer cells in. The sin of omission would be like failing to eat, failing to drink, failing to maintain good health through just doing the things I’m supposed to do.

John McLarty: Ignore the condition.

Kimberly Faith: Ignore the condition or just failure to take care of myself in a healthy way. What a great analogy. And I would never heal because I was not doing the, I was doing the wrong things in order to promote healing. And what a great analogy to use. If we want the wounds that we have that are a result of living in a fallen world to heal, to be cured, I mean, we can do some things to promote a healthy soul. And it goes back to avoiding the sins of commission and avoiding the sins of omission. I want to talk about some of these. So when you think of the sense of commission, what are some things you think of?

John McLarty: I think of worry. 

Kimberly Faith: Okay. 

John McLarty: I think of unforgiveness.

Kimberly Faith: That’s a big one. It’s like a poison, right?

John McLarty: That’s a couple I think of.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I mean, there’s so many that just, I think they’re just pervasive. Talk about greed, envy, pride. Pride is a real sneaky one. But as soon as we become,  think that we’re something, then without God, now we can live independently from God, that’s pride. But all these things And what this caused me to do when I looked at, I asked the Lord, reveal to me the sin that I’m committing, the things that I know are wrong, and I’m doing them anyway, that are preventing my soul from having full healing. And some of the things he revealed to me was that pride is a big one.

John McLarty: The pride of life. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: You think of, think it’s in, is it in First John, the sins, the pride of life.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.  And of you know, those are just three, a trio of stumbling blocks for all of us. I mean, as soon as we think that we are able to live our life without God, whether that’s driving from Waynesville, Missouri to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and we can do that without God’s help, we have entered into the pride of life because we can’t do anything without God. Worry is another one. The Lord was like, you know, He commands us not to worry. Jesus gave us a great example. If I feed the birds of the air, why wouldn’t I feed you? I’m paraphrasing, of course.

John McLarty: Well, and I think maybe some of our listeners can relate to this. I’ll just be very transparent. I really struggle with, it’s like my brain almost wants to worry about something. Like, if I’m worrying about something and it gets resolved, I’m going like, ten seconds later, I’ve moved on to something else. And I’m going like, what is wrong with my brain? Do I love, like to worry? It’s just thinking about things that you can’t resolve. So it’s just, I’ve really started recognizing it. 

Kimberly Faith: That’s good. 

John McLarty: One key is to recognize it. And like, wait a minute, dismiss this. Lord, help me just clear my mind. It’s like worrying isn’t going to resolve the problem.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. I love that you say that because I kind of, I mean, worry is, I always know when I’m worrying because I’ve lost my peace. And there’s little tricks that I have to do with my mind. If I start losing my peace, I have first, sometimes I don’t even know why I’ve lost my peace. I don’t even know what I’m worrying about because it’s such a knee jerk reaction.

And so I have to ask the Lord, Why have I lost my peace? Because I can’t figure it out. Now, other times, it’s more obvious. But it may just be a person that has interjected themselves on my radar and is making life difficult. But I asked the Lord, help me to give this to you and then not take it back. That was last year’s New Year’s resolution. 

John McLarty: Good.

Kimberly Faith: But even like greed, I don’t like to think of myself as a greedy person, but this is one of the things that God showed me. What do you do with your money, Kim? How generous have you been in giving to my work? How generous have you been to your neighbor with your time? How generous have you been with your resources, with your love? Giving without an expectation of receiving. If you want to heal, you’re going to have to give these things up. So, I mean, these are on my confess and forsake list. This is on my list.

John McLarty: You know what? We can throw in the term addiction, I mean, I’m not addicted to a drug, but we can be addicted to just screens. We can be kind of addicted to worry. We can be addicted to approval of others. We can be addicted to different things.

Kimberly Faith: Well, and one of the things, yeah, I’ll tell you one of the things I’ve kind of found myself addicted to lately is my need to know the news. 

John McLarty: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: We have a war going on. We have sleeper cells that we’re worried about, right? That we’re thinking about in our country. It’s almost like I’ve been starving for the news, like what’s happened today.

John McLarty: I can be right in the middle of reading my Bible 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: And if my phone is beside me, these phones. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: I’m going like, I wonder what’s happening in Iran.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: I just do a little glance and I’m going like, Why am I doing that?

Kimberly Faith: Right, right. As if that is more important than the God of the universe. 

John McLarty: Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I think that, again, if you’re listening to this and you have wounds that you would like to have healed, wounds caused by trauma, you need to get real. I’m getting real about my sins of commission. But I also, I don’t want to create more wounds. I don’t want to inject more sin into, injecting more cancer into my already struggling body. I don’t want to inject more cancer of sin into my life in order to make the wound bigger, the wounds bigger. So it also, though, I want to flip now to the sins of omission, because the same way you don’t want to inject cancer into your body, you also need to keep your body whole. You need to keep your body healthy. You need to keep your, you need to do all the right things which heal you. It’s not just about putting the things in our life that are unhealthy. It’s also about doing the things that are healthy. And this, again, we’re promoting healing from trauma by when we do these things. Just some I don’t know. Have you thought about any things that you struggle with that hurt your spiritual health?

John McLarty: Sure. A big one, prayerlessness.

Kimberly Faith: That was number one on my list.

John McLarty: And I mean, many times, often, and I still do, like commit to more prayer, and then it lasts for a little bit, and then it

Kimberly Faith: Waxes and wanes.

John McLarty: Waxes and wanes.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: But yeah, that’s a big one. Prayerlessness. And I say, not only just reading the Bible, but kind of reading the Bible prayerfully. Just that trying to connect with God, not doing that enough. And that’s a sin of omission. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: It’s a lack of doing something.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I really think that our enemy likes to keep us prayerless, because that’s my number one I mean, a sin of omission in just self assessing and asking the Holy Spirit to show me. Why wouldn’t I want to be constantly in communication with the God of the universe who’s already in tomorrow, who’s already been in yesterday? He knows what’s coming down the pike. He knows where the enemy is. He knows where the people are that need him. He knows how to guide my steps. I think about our little life verse, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will, what? Direct your path.

John McLarty: Direct our path.

Kimberly Faith: But yet, we just we’re like, we’re like idiots. I mean, why would I stumble out into the battlefield without comms? And we have the opportunity to be directed by the chief commander, the one who knows everything. He has better intel than any military force on earth. He’s better than the Mossad. He’s better than the CIA, all these different organizations. But it’s because I know the enemy attacks the heaviest there. If he can ruin our comms, He can really disable us.

John McLarty:  Yeah, our line of communication.

Kimberly Faith: Right, right. And I think that, to me, prayerlessness in my life, I’ve had to ask, It was funny, I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine, and she was telling me about some situations in her life. I said, Hey, let’s just pray right now. And I don’t remember where we were. Oh, we were getting ready to play pickleball. And we were staying in the parking lot of the place we play. And I said, Let’s just pray. And so I just looked at her and I started talking to God. And she goes, Really? She’s just like, Really? You’re not bowing your head and getting on your knees? I said, No, God’s right here.

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: So we had a three way convo with God right there.

John McLarty: That’s great.

Kimberly Faith: And I think that we get stuck in our mind that we need to say some Benedictine prayer. And that’s not what we need to do. Yes, we should have time that we set aside where we’re very focused, where we are getting business done with God.

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Strong resets and everything. But man, I like to wake up in the morning talking to God. Most of the time I say, Lord, I got nothing. You  need to fill me with your spirit. I’m not feeling it right now. And He understands that because our flesh is just so weak, right? Flesh is weak, but the spirit is willing.

John McLarty: Well, and we’re being transparent here about things we struggle with, just for another sin of omission. And I take no credit for this. We joined a church years ago where everyone, you just went Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. So we weren’t spiritual giants. That just became our habit.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But you know, to any listeners out there, just the idea of a commitment to a local church community, or if you’re living, these podcasts go all over the world. If there’s not a local church where you are, find some believers. But that fellowship of believers, and to not do that, because that’s so important to overcoming trauma and dealing with having encouragement to pray, have encouragement to spend time in the Word. That’s a big thing in my life recently, is realizing the positive impact of other believers in my life.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And I like that, dad, and I appreciate you bringing that up. If you are living in a country, because this podcast goes all over the world. If you live in a country where you have the freedom to congregate-

John McLarty: You should.

Kimberly Faith: There is nothing that you will appreciate more than a body of believers or an inner ring of believers who will sharpen you, who will help you heal from your trauma, because that’s a collaborative effort. I was talking to a friend of mine who just went through a very traumatic event. And I asked her, I said, Who are your people? We don’t live close to each other. And she said, I don’t have anybody. The only people I have are my drinking buddies. I said, You’ve got to change that. And God knows. God knows where they are. God knows where your people are. And you’ve just have to be willing to be open to that guidance. And it’s not, I always get frustrated when I hear people say, Well, I visit these churches and nobody reaches out to me. Or nobody, just the criticisms. And my point is, you aren’t going to a church to be ministered to. You’re going to a church to be, it’s like joining the army. You don’t join the army to be ministered to. No. You join the army to be part of something bigger than yourself. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: If your church doesn’t have, I was talking to a lady, her son was very disturbed. He didn’t want to go to Sunday school because all they do is color. I said, Well, then you start a class where the kids learn something. I said, that’s  

John McLarty: Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: Be the change. Instead of being the critic, be the change. And I think that when we neglect the commitment because we get discouraged about the lack, instead of being the change, God can make us the change.

John McLarty: And just to tie it to the Word of God, the Word of God tells us, Forsake not this assembling together. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: So it’s actually a direct command.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And for those who live in countries where you can’t freely assemble, God has a plan. He knows the enemy.

John McLarty: And you know, I say? It’s a command, but it’s not a grievous command.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: To us, it’s like, we couldn’t even imagine not assembling. We love, as our associate pastor calls the flock our homies.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: I mean, when our church dismisses, thirty minutes later, there’s still little clusters of people hanging around just visiting.

Kimberly Faith: Well, it’s like saying you don’t want a family, a close family. Of course you want a close family. Everybody needs somebody. And I don’t mean to, you know, I think you brought up earlier just failure to regularly study and meditate on God’s word. You know, you know, God’s word the Bible says in Psalms 119, Your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. If you want to get rid of the cancer, if you want to make sure that your immune system can recognize the cancer, then you feed yourself with good stuff. 

John McLarty: Amen. 

Kimberly Faith: And that’s hiding God’s word in our heart. One of the things I really, just, again, being fully transparent here, I struggle with is I tend to ride on the coattails of my prior success when it comes to or my prior knowledge and study of God’s word instead of getting into it fresh.

I’ll write a devotional and I’ll already know, oh yeah, this scripture, that scripture, and it’ll come together really nicely just because I already know some things. But man, it’s kind of like eating the same meal over and over again. And God says, But I got something fresh over here, and you’d really enjoy it. Ignoring that. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And man, when-

John McLarty: Yeah, God’s word is multifaceted.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty:  We talked about it before.

Kimberly Faith: It’s very excited. I’ll tell you, another big omission that God just continues to lay on my heart is being very, very aware of the lost people around me, the people who need to hear the gospel and carrying out the great commission. Carrying out the great commission, making disciples, in other words, teaching people how to carry out the gospel, teaching people how to address the hard questions in life, like why are we here? What happens when we die? All the things that people ask and we should be able to answer. Discipleship and evangelism, if we neglect that, we’re neglecting, we are all, if we’re born again believers, we are directly responsible for carrying out the great commission. It’s not the preacher’s job. It’s not the deacon’s job. It is our job. And when we do that, when we are, it’s almost like we’re becoming the chemo line for people who have cancer.

John McLarty: We’ve been made ambassadors for Christ.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And when you’re helping someone else, it helps you.

John McLarty: And how many times have we seen somebody in a trauma, a tragedy they’ve lost a child. And what pulls them out of it is deciding to minister to others that maybe have gone through the same thing. 

Kimberly Faith: So true. 

John McLarty: But that helps their desire to help others helps them. Kind of be released from that, healed from that trauma.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty:  That’s a great example.

Kimberly Faith: That is, yeah. And I love the idea of us, we’re the lifeline for other people’s healing because we have the gospel.

John McLarty: We’re called to that great work.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. What a great privilege. 

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: We get to be the lifeline. We get to be the Jesus for other people. People need to see Jesus in us, and that is the cure for their spiritual cancer, is Jesus Christ. Again, I know people don’t like to talk about sin, but man, no sin is neutral. Every sin wounds us. If you’re suffering from trauma, God doesn’t want you to live in the effects of that trauma. He has a divine purpose for you, a glorious purpose. And, you know, we’ve talked about our purpose being,  you know, whatsoever you eat, whatsoever you drink, whatsoever you do, do all for the glory of God. Throughout God’s word, it talks about we are created for God’s glory. Old Testament, New Testament. And I like to use this example just to bring it, because people you know, sometimes God seems to be a bit of a, you know, esoteric thing that we talk about because we don’t, he’s not sitting across the table from me right now like you are. But you think about your greatest hero, whether that’s a football player, a singer, a president, whatever. If that person, if you were the agent for that person that you admired, man, you wouldn’t shut up about it. It would be like, yeah, I represent this person. We are the representatives of the greatest being in the entire universe.

John McLarty: Ambassadors for Christ.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. Like you just said. And we have a glorious

John McLarty: A job to do.

Kimberly Faith: A glorious job.

John McLarty: A glorious job.That’s not a burden. 

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: I mean, it’s helping others.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: Number one, find Him. And number two, if they know Him, to be fruitful. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Which is a blessing to them.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And if you’re listening to this and you think that the trauma that you have suffered is incurable, well, the Bible is clear that it is curable. When I say that, I don’t mean that you can, you know, if your mother has died or your child has died, it’s not that you’re going to bring them back to life. It’s that you’re going to learn to glorify God despite your circumstances. You know?

John McLarty: And we don’t want to minimize. It’s not like you’re not going to grieve.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Of course, you’re going to grieve.

John McLarty: But, you know, if whatever, you know, some people get over quicker than others and we don’t want to, you know

Kimberly Faith: We’re not comparing the transmission to the death of a child. Right.

John McLarty:  But you know, and you and I have both experienced this where we’ve just been blindsided by events. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  And pretty soon the Lord shows you you just can’t live in this depression or funk. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: You know, some of the Old Testament prophets that, you know, they’re shocked by a nation of Israel going to be judged since this. They sat astonished. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: And I can relate to that.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: I’ve been so like 

Kimberly Faith: Horrible.

John McLarty:  I’m just astonished, like for days.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah.

John McLarty: And then finally it’s like, okay, I can’t stay like this or I won’t be calling my cousin George and trying to just be a blessing to him. Making bread for somebody.

Kimberly Faith: We don’t have to live in the misery of trauma.

John McLarty: Exactly. 

Kimberly Faith: We are overcomers. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The operative part is through Christ. We can’t do it on our own. But to be in Christ, number one, we need to be born again. And number two, we need to be living for his glory.

John McLarty: Well, think about this verse, James 4:8. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: But it says, draw near to God. Make that effort. Let God pull me out of this.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And, yeah, that verse goes on to say, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double minded. I think about David’s prayer in Psalm 51 where he says, he’s just before God, just prostrate. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. He also, another prayer, is, you know, search me and try me and see if there’d be any wicked way in me. You know, David had these great prayers. This is our lifeline to healing. If we want to heal, then all these things you know, if you’re sitting here and you say, well, I have this trauma and I really don’t have any glaring sin, but I’m stuck here.

Well, I promise you. I promise you. If you ask the Lord to reveal the things that are keeping you stuck in trauma, he will. Because I’m just exhibit A. Okay? We’ve all had trauma. We don’t have to live in it. That’s the good news. God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from even the unrighteousness. We can’t actually see it. Right?

John McLarty: And, you know, Kim, sometimes it’s just old fashioned sin.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Sometimes we think, oh, my sin is I’m not praying enough. No, it actually might be that you just have a bad, stinking, unforgiving attitude toward somebody. You know what I’m saying? I have this nuanced sin and I’m not in prayer enough. I’m just kind of being a little facetious. But it might just be an old fashioned sin that we need to get rid of.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And you know what?

John McLarty: A well known sin, so to speak.

Kimberly Faith: Well, it’s kind of like when you have a gimpy leg. You kind of get used to it. And if the reason you have a gimpy leg is because you got a rock in your shoe, then just take the rock out of your shoe. You know? And it’s sometimes we forget the rock is in our shoe.

That’s why David’s prayer, search me

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: And try me and see if there’d be any wicked way in me. That’s such a great prayer because sin is sneaky. Our enemy, we have the flesh, we have the devil, we have the world culture. They’re all sneaky. Satan does not want us to experience freedom from trauma.

He wants us to feel like victims our entire life. He wants us to be guarded. He wants us to be depressed, defeated. He does not want us to experience a victorious life in Jesus Christ. So we have to fight actively against that.

John McLarty: Yeah. And that whole thing  of victimology

Kimberly Faith:  Is that a  word?

John McLarty: I just made it one. 

Kimberly Faith: I’m proud of you right now, dad.

John McLarty: We tend to want to be that. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. 

John McLarty: Some terrible thing  happened to me thirty years ago.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And we dwell on it and feed it. We think about what we become. If we think that we’re a victim, then that’s who we’re going to be. But if we think we are victorious in Christ, then that’s who we will be. You know, I think about what Jesus said. He said, ask, this is in Matthew 7:7-11. He said, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you.

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. Or, what man is there among you? If his son asks for bread, we’ll give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, we’ll give him a serpent. If you then, be in evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more, how much more, will the father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? And you know

John McLarty: Amen and amen.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. God

John McLarty: Yep. Our father is good.

Kimberly Faith: God loves us more than we love ourselves. So of course he wants to heal us. Of course he does.

John McLarty: He doesn’t want us to live in perpetual trauma.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. So if you’re listening  to this podcast and you’ve been traumatized, I’m sure everybody listening to this podcast has been traumatized, if that trauma has got you trapped, if it’s got you in its clutches, you don’t have to stay there. I don’t have to stay there. Dad, you don’t have to stay there. And we’ve all got it. We all understand that it’s a common human experience. But according to God’s word, we do not have to stay there.

John McLarty: God has the path out. And it kind of revolves around loving him and loving others.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: The great commandments.

Kimberly Faith: Two great commandments. Amen. 

John McLarty: Amen.

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