The Deep Pain Of A Century Old Lie


                         By Phil Scovell



     I went to bed angry.  I knew it was wrong, of course, since
the Bible says not to let the sun go down on your wrath, but I
could not locate the source of my anger.  That isn't exactly true
because I did know something about the anger but I thought,
foolishly, it would go away by morning if I slept on it.  wrong.

     when I awakened with a terrible headache the next morning, it
was a good two hours before I normally would be getting up.  I got
up, took some pain medications, and waited for it to work.  As I
waited for my headache to subside, I suddenly realized my anger
was still there.  I prayed and asked the Lord the source of this
anger.  Frankly, I thought I knew the source, but instead of
taking me to what I thought was wrong, the Lord immediately took
me to a memory that was very sad and was eleven years old.  Let me
explain to you this memory so you'll have a better understanding
of how the Lord healed me from the pain and anger.

     This particular memory event occurred at least eleven years
ago but as I was soon to find out, it was older than that.  In
fact, it was over 100 years old.

     Since my wife and I are both blind, we obviously don't drive.
Funny, though.  We always ended up buying, paying for,
registering, insuring, washing, maintaining, and making the
monthly payments on all the cars we bought for our kids as they
began driving.

     The first vehicle we purchase was a limn.  It broke down so
much, that I put in as much money for repairs the first year as I
did on buying the car and that was about 2200 dollars.  So, every
time I climbed into the car, my ears immediately began listening
to the motor.  What was going to break down next?  It was a very
relaxing experience to always be worried about your car each and
ever time you got in it.  A little tongue in cheek, there, of
course.

     My oldest son had been driving for only two months.  Some of
the nicest Christmas tree lights in Denver are within a couple of
miles of our house.  One man in that neighborhood has over 100,000
Christmas lights in his yard and on his house.  Well, we had been
to this neighborhood many times but never alone as a family.  This
was our first time out as a family in our own car just to see
Christmas lights.  It was kind of thrilling.  My oldest son had a
bad attitude about it because he likely had other plans for the
evening.  So he complained and moaned and carried on like a two
year old the whole time.  this made me very happy, of course, and
my attitude improved by the minute as I listened for the next
clink in the engine.

     Suddenly, the engine died all together and we rolled to the
curb.  Now what?  My oldest son immediately jumped on me for not
keeping the car in better shape.  My wife was questioning me from
the back, where else, about having to have known more about what
was wrong, and I swear, my hand on the bible, my other two younger
kids were saying something about me, too.  Of course, by this
point, I could have been imagining things but I was not imagining
the deep painful sadness I felt inside of me.  I made a couple of
very unchristian comments about the whole kit and caboodle of the
lot, told my son to turn the blank key over, and bingo!  The
engine fired, ran smooth, and we went on to see all the Christmas
lights.  The only bad part was my oldest son still griping about
having to take us on a 15 minute ride.  To this day, I still don't
know what he was bugged about.  The only thing that could possibly
go wrong now is the Santa Clause standing out in front of this
guy's house refusing me candy as we slowly drove by.  Now, back to
my anger.

     So I get up early, like I said, take something for my
headache, and as I am standing at the sink, half asleep, I feel my
anger still there.  Oh, shoot.  I thought it would die during the
night and now it was still there.  So, I do what I always do; I
prayed.  "Lord," I said, "I guess there's someplace I need to go
to find the origin of this anger, so take me to the memory where
the lie is that this anger is hiding."  You see, I have learned
that anger is never the problem.  Anger masks the lie which
creates the anger and the lie can be anything, too.

     So as soon as I ask the Lord to show me the lie, bang.  I'm
back in the car at Christmas time eleven years ago and feeling the
pain of the sadness is if it were yesterday.  So I said, "Lord,
this ain't it.  There's no anger in this memory.  I see no lies in
this memory.  So let me see the first time I felt this anger."  I
was closing a cupboard door as I was praying.  By the way, all I
am describing to you now took about thirty second of total prayer
time.  As I closed the cupboard door, explaining to the Lord how
He had led me to the wrong place, I heard myself saying, "But I
will never forget the pain and sadness buried deep down inside of
me as I sat in that car."  I froze.  I knew that such a feeling
could only mean one thing and that memory had a lie in it and had
to be healed or it would come back to bother me.  So I said, "Ok,
Lord.  You took me to the right place but where is the lie in the
memory because I can't see it."

     The Holy Spirit began talking to me and said, "How did you
feel in the car with your family criticizing you for the car
breaking down?"

     "Sad," I said flatly.

     "How did you feel about the sadness?" He wanted to know.

     I heard myself saying to the Holy Spirit, in complete
amazement, "I felt like a poor father."

     "And how did you feel about being a poor father at that
moment," the Holy Spirit asked.

     "I felt like I was a lousy provider for my own family and
thus not a good dad."

     "Was that true?" the Holy Spirit ask.

     Suddenly, I saw it was a lie.  Somebody told me I wasn't a
good enough father.  So I said, "Lord, where in my entire life did
I get the idea I was a poor and lousy father because I can't feel
it any where in my life."

     At this very moment, my mind flashed backward throughout my
entire life; even back into the early days of my childhood.  I saw
in front of me, a large, wall to wall, black board in a school
room which had just been wiped clean.  I prayed.  "Lord, there is
nothing in my life, then, which is the root of this lie about
being a lousy father.  So I am stuck.  I can't find the truth.
Where is it?"

     The Holy Spirit then said to me, "What have I shown you about
your dad?"

     I said, "I know my dad had similar feelings about his
identity but what does that have to do with me?"

     the Holy Spirit said, "What else do you know about your
father?"

     I said, "Well, he was born two and a half months after the
death of his own father."

     "So what do you suppose your father might have felt, or heard
people talking about, concerning his birth?"

     then I understood.  My father thought he could not be a good
enough father, or a good enough man, because he had no father.
the Holy Spirit revealed this concept to me in an instant of time.
Further more, the Holy Spirit also impressed upon me that my
father's own dad, my grandfather, felt this same way about
himself, too.  He furthermore impressed upon me that it was passed
down to my dad's generation and then ultimately to my own
generation.

     when any lie is exposed by the Holy Spirit, the next step is
generally to listen for the truth of God and that's what I did.
Jesus spoke and said, "You are not a lousy father and never have
been.  I am always with you."

     Well, you say, that's all nice and good but it sounds like a
bunch of spiritual emotional trickery and hocus pocus to me.
Fine.  You can believe whatever you wish.  However, when this
thirty second conversation with the Lord was over, I had no anger,
the sadness I felt in the memory had vanished, and I was free.
this lie was over a century old, yet I was free from it by the
power of the Holy Spirit and the Healing power of the True Lord
Jesus Christ.  So, as I said, believe what you wish.  I'm free
from the lie.

     I have learn, in praying with many people, that often, as
children, and many times as little babies, sometimes even as
little babies in the womb, they hear the worries and concerns and
feel the guilt and the grief and sadness of those around them.
If you doubt this is true, I'll give you names and phone numbers
of people who experience exactly what I am talking about with no
suggestiveness on my part.  the Enemy often uses these
opportunities to implant lies in our thinking.  Many decades
later, the lies are triggered by current day events and the old
emotions rush out to cause us pain.  the secret?  Instantly turn
to the Lord and ask Him to show you the source.  You may discover
as did I, it is more than a century old.


I Flew Kites With Jesus
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com