Healing of the soul begins with taking responsibility. What happened to you was not your fault, but healing is your responsibility. When Adam sinned, God approached him to take responsibility for the fall, but he shifted the blame to Eve. Eve then shifts it to the devil. The devil remains silent, hence dominion flows to him. At the cross, Jesus remained silent even when accused and took full responsibility for sin, therefore, dominion went to him. When you take responsibility for your healing, you are taking back territories in your soul that you once handed over to the enemy. Once you reclaim it, you regain dominion over the area.
“If you don’t heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who did not cut you. Then they are going to need healing for your bleeding”.
Say with me, ” It ends with me”
Casting Down Strongholds
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” 1 Corinthians 10:4-5
If you are stuck in repetitive cycles and are finding it hard to break free from them, then you could be dealing with strongholds. Strongholds are of the mind, as the scripture above reveals. They consist of established negative thought patterns, ideologies and belief systems that define how you think and act.
I define a stronghold as a fortress of lies that has been established over time as truth in our minds. The web of lies soon becomes an impenetrable fortress in our minds that prevents us from moving forward. Underneath negative, repetitive patterns is an established lie that you have believed over time until it has taken the form of truth. Your negative experiences validate the lie as truth in your life put in other words, your experiences validate your beliefs, turning them into convictions. At this point, you find it hard to overcome them as they guide and control your life.
Examples of Strongholds
For instance, assume you meet someone who struggles with sexual impurity. It could be that, while growing up, a thought pattern was established into their belief system that they are unworthy, or something happened that made them feel unloved. At this point, this was just a lie, but if they got into relationships later in their life made them feel the same way, then the lie is validated as truth in their mind that they are unworthy.
With time, they start living the lie. That is, they embrace shame, unworthiness, rejection, abandonment and all other negative traits as a part of their identity. They may even dress, walk and talk like shame or rejection. Strongholds provide the fuel for our addictions as we use them to cope with negative emotions. The power of the lie is that you believe and take it as truth.
Sometimes the stronghold in your life is that you have a longer history with pain and bondage than with freedom. So, you don’t know how to live outside it. You can be more familiar with rejection than acceptance that you self-sabotage yourself when seasons change. For instance, the Israelites were more familiar with captivity and bondage than freedom. Their lives in Canaan were a story of going back to captivity. Another example; imagine a man born crippled. One day, they receive healing for their condition. However, they continue carrying their crutches not as a testament of their healing but as backup in case they become crippled again. You see, they are carrying the traumas of a past season to another; they have found comfort in their dysfunction. It’s the reason why in Isaiah 54, God tells the barren woman to sing.
Another example of a stronghold is that cancer is incurable. It’s incurable to man but not to God. He heals cancer with the same ease as malaria.
How to demolish strongholds
Most of the time we take great efforts to deal with the symptoms (porn, alcoholism) without addressing the stronghold. True deliverance comes when you get to the root of the problem, which is the lie that you have believed that has become truth in your life. True freedom is not breaks in between sin cycles, it’s when the cycle is completely broken. He who the son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36).
To cast down a stronghold, you need to demolish it with the truth in the word of God. It is for this reason that the bible says in John 8:32, “You shall know the truth and that truth shall set you free”. If the stronghold that keeps you bound in cycles of cheap love is unworthiness, then the truth to demolish it is receiving God’s unconditional love. You need the Holy Spirit to unravel the strongholds in your life. You do not cast out strongholds, you pull them down through the word of God.
One of Satan’s greatest strategies against believers is to bind them before they bind him; the enemy plays a long game. He knows that you cannot cast out a demon you are sleeping with. It’s for this reason that most strongholds are sown by the enemy during childhood. For instance, children tend to be innocent, not knowing the truth from lies. Also, children don’t know how to correctly express negative emotions like shame and unworthiness, or have language for them; this makes it easier for the devil to bind them with traumatic experiences. This results in permanent scars that many find hard to heal from, even in adulthood. The enemy often whispers thoughts of unworthiness, condemnation and shame to us in 1st person (so you take the thoughts as yours). With time, these lies become walls that you find hard to break. Unhealed wounds tend to be entry points for demonic influence.
The beauty of deliverance is that it allows the real ‘You’ to come forth. Your authentic, true self is set free and allowed to thrive.
How Trauma Leads to a Fragmented Soul
1 Thessalonians 5:23,” Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
3 John 1:2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers”
Psalms 23:3, “He restores my soul”
Psalms 42:5, “Why are you cast down, O my Soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of his countenance”
**TRIGGER WARNING ALERT**
A Fragmented soul is formed during traumatic experiences when a person uses dissociation to escape an overwhelming crisis. This usually happens during childhood as a way to survive and cope with trauma and unbearable stress.
Consider a child under six years old who faces repeated physical, sexual, and verbal abuse. Since the child cannot physically escape because they are young and the abuser is bigger and more powerful, they learn to handle the overwhelming stress and painful emotions by mentally disconnecting from the situation. When the abuser approaches to harm them, the child cannot run away, so their mind learns to “escape” by going somewhere else mentally while their body remains present.
However, a person cannot completely leave their body while still alive, so part of them stays present and experiences the trauma. After the traumatic event ends, the part of their mind that escaped returns to awareness. Meanwhile, the fragmented part of their soul that endured the trauma gets pushed down and hidden in their unconscious mind. This buried part later surfaces in their conscious awareness through triggers and flashbacks, causing sudden overwhelming emotions that feel impossible to control.
Through repeated dissociation, the fragmented piece of the soul that remained during trauma can develop its own separate identity within the unconscious mind, which often manifests as multiple personality disorders. Verbal abuse can lead to a soul tear. In some instances, demons wrap themselves around this fragmented piece, leading to demonic influence or possession. Traumas also lead to strongholds in the mind, and you start experiencing feelings of unworthiness, shame, rejection and unexplained hatred towards yourself.
How the Holy Spirit Heals Our Souls
Isaiah 61:1-1, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, To preach good tidings to the poor, He has sent me to heal/bind the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound”
When the Holy Spirit comes to your life, He comes to bind and heal those fragmented pieces so that you can become one. Jesus can travel back in time and heal you. He can also retrieve fragmented pieces of your soul that are buried deep within your subconscious. The Holy Spirit is gentle with your emotions. He will not lay on you more than you can bear; he is gentle and firm. In Isaiah 43:3, we are told of the work of the Messiah that, “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoking flax He will not quench”.Your emotions and heart are safe with him as He won’t leave you more damaged than when He found you. His gentle, not careless with your motions; you can trust him with your entire being. Jesus knows how to balance Grace and Truth. He understands why you act the way you do, but He also loves you so much that he doesn’t want to leave you the way he found you. Be honest with your emotions with him.
How to Know your Soul is being Healed
- You stop being against yourself. You stop the name-calling – I am worthless, I am inadequate. You stop self-sabotaging. We were never created to be against ourselves. There should be oneness within your soul, body and spirit. Extend the same love you received on the cross to yourself. Ask yourself, would Jesus treat me the same way I treat myself? You determine the price of a thing by the price you are willing to pay for it. Your true value is the price God paid for you, which is the blood of Jesus.
- You start believing and confessing what the word of God says about you. These shape your belief system. To confess means ‘same as’; it’s a word of agreement. Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind”. You embrace prophecy. Prophecy reveals the version God created you to be; for example, Jeremiah and Gideon.
- You allow yourself to feel the pain instead of suppressing, numbing or running away from it with harmful coping mechanisms (feel it to heal it). Sometimes we erect walls to protect us from future pain, but these walls also shut God out. Man has been using fig leaves to cover their nakedness from the time of Adam. Fig leaves wither and don’t provide complete covering. Your fig leaves can be your career, intelligence, social status, wealth or negative coping mechanisms like promiscuity, drugs or alcohol.
- You stop allowing people to mishandle you. The narrative becomes I don’t allow myself to treat myself this way, why should you. The reason people treat you the way they do is because you treat yourself the same way. You learn to say “NO” to things and people that do not serve your truth. You learn how to set up and communicate healthy boundaries because you recognise that ‘You’ matter. You have value.
- Your authentic self starts to thrive. The version of you which is your true self starts expressing itself. Your creativity comes alive as you live from your authentic self that has been buried by trauma.
- You stop carrying trauma and dysfunction from one season to another. Hebrews 12:2 tells us to lay off the weight that hinders our effective running of our race. You need to remember that this season (new) is not that. Healing allows you to be fully present in a new season. You learn to love and receive love.
- You learn to forgive. We tend to confuse forgiveness and reconciliation. It takes one person to forgive, but two people for reconciliation. Forgiveness is for you, and it’s not an excuse for the offender for bad behaviour, but it liberates your soul from all the bitterness and offence that contaminates it. Forgiveness allows for God’s justice and vindication. Holding onto unforgiveness, offence, and bitterness is like taking rat poison and expecting the rat to die.
- You start living a consecrated life (Sanctification). This helps you remain delivered. Deliverance is what casts out the demon; discipleship is what keeps it out. Deliverance without discipleship leads to cycles of deliverance as the door is still open (Matthew 12:43-45). A consecrated life is marked by Purity, holiness, submission to the Holy Spirit, restraint of the flesh and the fear of God.
The Cross is the Place of Exchange
Beauty for ashes, the oil of Joy for morning, a garment of gladness for a spirit of heaviness, double honour for shame and restoration for lost years. Isaiah 61
Prayer: Psalms 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me; And lead me in the way everlasting”
