Fear of Recieving and Flight from life

George Hartwell

Jul 8, 2004

Receiving - Inner Healing of the Flight from life

Think about these things: What do you need to receive? What does it mean to receive? When are you ready to receive? What blocks you from receiving?

Let's explore these question with God's wisdom and our creativity. A baby needs food. Yes? And water. Yes. And shelter. Yes. And love - acknowledgement of one being of another. Yes. Skin touch. Handling. Yes.

An infant needs to gain in mastery. Satisfy it's need to learn about it's environment. Satisfy it's curiosity. Gain in survival skills. Become independent. Specifically and child learns to crawl, walk, observe, touch and feel things, communicate.

A child learns his or her place in the social order. Learns about property, fun, danger, good and bad behaviour and how to play. Learns to master the essential skills that allow an adult to survive.

As adults we may identify our need for a share in social produce (provision, share of the wealth). We also need a secure place in our society: to be a member of a family or clan, to belong and have met our needs for acknowledgment, touch, fun, and play. We also like to be recognized a special for some particular achievement or success.

How does receiving touch on all these different needs? Let us focus on the need for

1.respectful acknowledgement (love),

2.for touch (physical affection),

3.for provision (wealth or money) and

4.for recognition (success or achievement).

For each need you might want to think about what it means for you to receive this. How do you communicate readiness to receive or lack of readiness to receive? How do you communicate lack of readiness to receive?

What do you do if someone spontaneously gives you love, affection, money or recognition?

Do you receive with grace? Are you a graceful receiver? If you know you need love and admit that you need love to yourself, then it is easier to respond graciously when love is offered. If you are hungry then you appreciate food. Blessed are the poor in spirit because they appreciate being fed. Perhaps one definition of humility is knowing and admitting that you have needs.

Can you express your needs with grace? Without demanding in such a way as not to respect the will of the other. Can you make a simple direct request? Do you say "Please." "Please," indicates a respect for the other because it means "If you please." Respectful asking indicates readiness to receive.

It is not the strength of our need that governs our readiness to receiving but our ability to trust, to be open, to be vulnerable, to give up control, to submit to another. A child has none of the defenses and protections of the adult and is perhaps why Jesus said to enter the kingdom of God we must turn and become like little children. A child shall lead them.

The less we trust the less we can receive, the less we can be vulnerable, the less we can be honest and open about our needs, the more we control others and avoid submitting to another. The less is our ability to trust, our basic trust in God, love and life, the more we control. Fear of God, fear of love, fear of life will result in various attempts to control God, love and life. John and Paula Sandford call this "Flight from life."

Rebellion is as witchcraft. Rebellion is rejection of God's authority or godly guidance or direction. Rebellion is taking over and running things ourselves. Witchcraft prayer is an expression of our need to control. It does not please God when we use prayer to attampt to control God, people, circumstances or Satan.

Rebellion is an outcome of feeling, believing or deciding that one is not loved. When we believe that those in authority do not love us we pull back from submitting to them. Children go into rebellion against parents when they don't feel loved. A nation goes into rebellion against a very controlling church - old style Roman Catholicism - and turns to the occult in anger and rebellion against the church and the god that the church portrayed.

People can be blocked from receiving because of hurts and beliefs from the past. The Sandfords refer to Bitter Root Judgments and Expectations. They saw in scripture the principles that what we judge (hate in our parents) will come upon us. We reap our hates be repeating the pattern we hate. We reap our hates by experiencing the pattern of what we hate coming down on us again and again. Truly there is no freedom until we forgive.

However, Listening Prayer Therapy does not preach forgiveness. This would create a forgiveness of the head and will but not the heart and Jesus did say we need to forgive from our heart, didn't he?

In Listening Prayer Therapy we explore the pain if God leads us to a specific memory. We ask for God's revelation of what we have believed at this time of pain. Confession is good for the soul. If we can recover in the pain what we decided, what we believed and how any demonic presence entered then healing and deliverance can begin.

What comes to the light becomes light.

Confession - first seeing then putting into words the negative belief system that has so poisoned our system. This is very healthy. This is of done in the context of judgment. The process is begun in prayer with the declaration that we want to be free, saved and delivered. We admit and ask for God's help in getting deliverance and healing.

Invitation. At the point when we feel our need for God's help - experiencing the pain of both the memory and our response to the event - we ask for Jesus to help. We are able to receive because we admitted our pain and our faulty beliefs. We see what was done to us and the faulty ways that we reacted.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." In the exploration of a painful memory and especially as we hit on the most pain generating beliefs the feeling of pain, hopelessness and darkness deepens. But Jesus is welcome in this darkness because we really need light. We really want His truth. The pain the Satan used to brand us with negative beliefs now becomes the landing ground for God's truth. When God lands the enemy scatters. When the light turns on the darkness is shattered. When our sinful beliefs are brought to the surface Satan's devices became exposed. Very quickly the stronghold melts away and God established the Kingdom of Light.

Forgiveness Happens. We did not insist on forgiveness but when Jesus was invited in, forgiveness came. The change of attitude occurred without any striving on our part. This is not head forgiveness it is the work of God in our heart. We may not realize that we have forgiven but our attitude has changed dramatically. God knows that forgiveness of the heat has happened. We taste of the ministry of the risen Christ and it is beautiful.

When our bitterness is removed without striving on our part, so are the Bitter Root Judgments removed. We may discover that our heart is now prepared to receive. God's supply starts flowing into our lives.

Other blocks to receiving include our: self doubt, fear, and timidity; our anger, bitterness and resentment; our unbelief and our tension. Over concern with our Self-Image and what people would think is also a block to receiving. Some of these require some specific work or prayer to remove these barriers.

One prayer image is to see these dropping into the lake of God's peace. Putting our focus upon God and worshipping Him is another way to remove obstacles.

Saying thank you is a way of receiving. It is simple way to benefit from the encouragement given to you by God and others. Sometimes we discount ourselves and negate any compliment. This indicates a fixed block to receiving good into our self-concept. We are not eating the food that is offered to us. Changing this habit to make an effort to say thank you is one way to start receiving.

Agape Christian Counselling, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

416-234-1850

www.HealMyLife.com

George Hartwell M.Sc.

Toll free: 1 (877) 854-3990