Even though he did not come to fix door locks he immediately wanted to help, and I watched as he slipped from amusement, to sympathy, to regret that he didn’t have the tools to fix the problem for this poor woman before she hurts herself in her daily routine of securing the door. He decided the next best thing was to give me instruction to remedy the problem myself.
All I had to do, according to him, was file down the holes where the lock fits together, and that would properly line everything up. That sounded easy enough, and I confidently pressed forward to fix it that morning! By the time afternoon rolled around, and several attempts to accomplish this “easy” task alone, I decided, instead, to do it my way!
After studying the whole situation I thought – I’ll just take the door off the hinges and re-adjust it that way. I can imagine what some of you are thinking, especially any handyman who is probably getting a real kick out of this. You guessed it – after another few hours – there I was back to doing a body slam to lock the door.
Conclusion: the dead bolt has always been hard to lock, I am used to it, and I’ll just leave it that way.
Re-adjusting
My “dead bolt” has not been properly aligned in some areas of my life as well. Some of it I knew about, and some of it I did not. The things I knew about I just kept doing over and over again, and not knowing why…or how…to stop it. Or, I was familiar with re-adjusting.
Then I heard about Elijah House and inner healing. After getting some sessions with them I found out that they had the right tools. I found out some things that I did not know were hurting me because I did them enough that they became – normal/natural part of life. It was a bit frightening to let go of the (familiar) that got me through life – even though it was making life miserable. After all, it kept me alive.
And, like the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But, HE never got frustrated with me that I could not see that what I was doing or saying was actually hurting me. I found freedom because they let me take the door off the hinges, so to speak, and even let me continue to do it my way until I could surrender it myself. And, there is always something to work on – like my door.
My clients come to me searching for someone with the right tools. That someone who has experience with having to get “lined up” themselves, and will know how to come alongside. Part of coming along side is letting them learn for themselves – through the power of the Holy Spirit – how to get the other side of the cross.* It is the lamp of the Lord that searches their inmost being to expose darkness.
“For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in ____’s heart to give ____ the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ”
(2 Cor.4:6; 1 Cor.2:11; Prov.20:27).
Giving In Is Not Giving Up
- I define “the other side of the cross” as the place where we walk with Jesus after we have surrendered, He has healed us in our inmost being, covered us with His blood (redeeming us), transformed our mind, and restoring our birthright.
One of my clients said to me recently that it is sad that it took all of her life to get to this place of knowing that giving to Jesus what has known as familiar, and “normal” is not a bad thing. As with all of us, it can be scary to give up to God the thing that we thought protected us. What will happen then? Is He really going to be on the other side…of what we thought was normal? It means totally giving up our control. Is He truly going to make it better for me without it? Yes! He does, every single time. This client, like all the rest, sit across from me with this beaming smile – free from people ruling her life.
The way we have learned to take care of ourselves (strongholds) without God really did work. It got us through life, but it required a full body slam – which is destructive. Freedom is on the other side of the cross. Where we don’t need a dead bolt. Yippee!