"Going Back in Order to Go Forward: Breaking the Power of the Past"

This past week in service we were talking about “Going back in Order to Go Forward: Breaking the Power of the Past”. This was one of the hardest things for me as I went through my healing journey. My past has a lot of hurts, sexual abuse, shame, and rejection. There were many times I didn’t think I was going to make it through and to be quite honest there were times I shouldn’t have made it.

Many years I sat in Christian counselors’ offices trying to overcome my past hurts and really not breaking free. I tried all the coping mechanisms as well as all the “forgiveness” prayers they gave me. We went through it all, but I just couldn’t shake it. I felt like I was in prison inside myself and I wasn’t going anywhere anytime fast.

About a year and a half after first coming to our current church, I started to meet with the counselor there and my life turn upside down. She helped me in a way that I have never experienced before. Chains started to break off of me and I was set free from the internal prison that I had been living in since a child. I finally felt alive! I still had things to deal with but I was given the tools to allow God to work through them with me and she showed me how He wanted to take them from me and bring healing.

As we started to go through the study “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” and series “Emoticons”, I began asking God to show me other things He wanted to work on inside of me. Of course, when you ask something like this, be ready for things to come up. God brought rejection to the surface. I thought I had dealt with it previously, but I obviously hadn’t and so I started to press in.

The chapter “Going Back to Go Forward” revealed a lot of rejection that I hadn’t yet dealt with. It was a chapter about going back into your family history (not just parents, but grandparents and great grandparents) to see the things that were passed down on to you. On both sides of my family rejection is something that is rampantly passed down and I experienced it as a throughout my childhood as well from other people. I was passing it onto my children as well. As I looked at this, I was struggling to let go and really to let God heal those areas so I could move forward. But like God always does, He brought forth something that gave me such comfort. He showed me of a time that Jesus physically went back and experienced the rejection and how he handled it…

In Luke Chapter 4:16 we see Jesus returning to His hometown of Nazarene. Prior to this, Jesus has already been baptized and received the Holy Spirit. He has went into the desert and been tempted by the devil and withstood all the enemy’s temptations. We then see in verses 14-15 that Jesus was in Galilee with the spirit of power and he had been teaching in their synagogues and the word had went out to all the surrounding countries and they all glorified Jesus. 

He goes from this great time of teaching to Verse 16 where we see Jesus is teaching in his hometown, in a place where he has grown up and everyone knows him and his character. After he finishes teaching, not only do the people reject him but we see in verses 28-29 that they drive him to a cliff and they want to throw him over. They had pretty serious wrath against him at this time. Not only does Jesus not react to this, but he passes through their midsts and walks away. He doesn't respond. 

As I read this, I find comfort in this knowing that not only was Jesus rejected but it was by people who knew him well. These are people who should know exactly who he is. A lot of times, we are hurt most by those who are closest to us, those who should know that we would never intentionally want to hurt them. The people in our lives who have known us the longest (our best friends, our family, our spouses, our children, etc.) are normally the ones who hurt us the most and reject us.

I have found throughout my journey of healing that the enemy loves to use those that are closest to us as tools against us, the closer to us, the better. And if we allow him to hurt us in this way and bring gaps in our relationships with those people, he can continue to wage war in the kingdom and keep us oppressed from advancing God’s kingdom.  A lot of times we let the enemy back us into the prison cell and then we lock it because we don’t want to deal with the hurts that are starring us in the face. And then we are stuck until we decide enough is enough or we allow the Holy Spirit to call it out and dig deep into those dark, hidden places.

I have found that the things I thought were so dark and scary to deal with, the things I thought were too painful to walk through weren’t actually that painful at all but more so freeing to open the door and run out. The freedom that we receive from allowing the Holy Spirit to minister to us in this area is worth more than we could even imagine. It has been so beautiful to watch how the things the enemy has meant for evil; God has turned those around into such beautiful, redemptive things for not only me but so many others.

There truly is freedom in our pasts. The keys to our futures lie in our pasts and if we are brave enough to allow the Holy Spirit to hand the keys to us for us to unlock the door, freedom is ours. 

****The chapter and book discussed in this blog post comes from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality By Peter Scazzero You can find the book here.

Luke 4:14-30English Standard Version (ESV)
Jesus Begins His Ministry
14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.


Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” 

20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph's son?” 23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” 24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 Andthere were many lepers[a] in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away.