Your belief system has been shaped by a lifetime of experiences, especially during the formative years. Hurtful experiences are gateways for damaging lies. But none of us knew how to discern lies on our own when we were boys. Unless someone was there to teach us how to guard our hearts, false beliefs were free to slither in, embed in our hearts, and compromise our true selves, guaranteeing we’d lose our way and the life God created us to have.
Thank God, the glorious offer of the gospel is just that—life. Life we have lost. Life only God can restore. Because we are never more alive than when we are being loved—and God is love (1 John 4:8). That’s why, in the conflict for your heart between the kingdoms of darkness and light, encounters that left lasting damage need to be replaced by new encounters with the God who is love—the God who loves you, whose image you bear.
That is how healing works, how it is accomplished. God reveals and loves aspects of you that weren’t loved well or weren’t loved at all. With God, you revisit a wounding moment in order to reclaim it for the kingdom of light. You do this by renouncing your agreement with shame, guilt, or fear and by replacing that agreement and whatever vow you made in response to it with a new agreement, a loving and kind agreement. This new one is an agreement with what Love (that is, God) says to you and about you. That’s how you let Love have power in your life. Encounters with God are the key to healing.
