Common Questions and Answers about

Inner Healing

by Edward Hersh, MA

What is Inner Healing?

Inner Healing is a term often given to emotional healing or healing of the heart (inner person). Healing is a process. If we trust Jesus Christ to forgive us of our sin (1 John 1:9), we can have eternal life (John 3:16), but the real work of change in our heart only begins with this decision to follow Jesus (Phil 2:12). Our soul continues to be evangelized (even following our conversion experience) in the sense that, we must surrender those parts of our being not yet surrendered to Christ and allow the cross of Christ to put to death our old (ungodly) motivations and behaviors (Sandford,1982) (1 Cor 5:17).

This process is called transformation. God accepts us as we are (even in our broken condition), but because of His great love and mercy, He desires to see us change for the good. The process of change requires a deep trust in God and is necessary for our spiritual growth (James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 2:3). John and Paula Sandford define transformation as "that process of death and rebirth whereby what was our weakness becomes our strength" (Sandford,1982,p11)) (2 Cor. 12:9). They further explain, "Christian healing comes then not by making a broken thing good enough to work, but by delivering us from the power of that broken thing so that it can no longer rule us, and by teaching us to trust his righteousness to shine in and through that very thing" (p16).

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 3:11 to "see to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God." It also tells us to renew our mind (Rom 12:2) and to receive a new heart and spirit within (Psalm 51: Ez 36:26). The work of transformation is a cooperative effort between God and our inner person. We must yield both our mind and our heart in the process. Sometimes this process becomes emotionally painful.

Why does inner healing seem to focus on emotions? Isn't our mind supposed to control our emotions?

God created human response as a complex intrinsical combination of cognition (reason) and emotion. God views each of us as a "whole person" (both mind and heart; Ps 26:2, 64:6; Isa 46:8; Jer 11:20, 17:10, 20:12; Matt 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27; Acts 4:32). God created us with both an objective and subjective nature of being.

Our modern world has taught us to always seek a "scientific" method to resolve problems. But that often doesn't work when applied to human behavior. Trying to reduce human interaction to objective methodology does not take into account the individual's uniqueness as expressed in things like personality type, learning style, physical ability and ethnic background. Because of the intricate balance of mind and heart, we must seek for both to be transformed in the healing process.

Some methods of Christian counseling and dealing with problems focus on obedience to God through Bible study and practicing spiritual disciplines. These methods major on objective truth, engaging the mind, challenging inaccurate beliefs and help to enforce new beliefs necessary for change. But focusing on logic and reason can sometimes lead to a superficial treatment of the problem in what amounts to behavior management instead of true change (Smith,1999). This can also lead to further frustration and striving.

I believe God wants us to look deeper into our being. Examining feelings can reveal blocked emotions, which contain valuable messages to help interpret past and present events. Most of us follow one of two remedies to deal with emotional pain. We try our best to pretend things are better than they really are or we live to relieve the pain at all cost. But whether we deny or self-gratify, at some point, we become even more painfully aware of our desperate state of human weakness and inability to effect lasting change without the supernatural presence of God in our lives. Emotions are messengers and not to

be inappropriately gratified or denied for the purpose of avoiding inner pain. They are designed by God to draw us closer to Himself, but highly subjective and sometimes not easily understood. Proverbs 20:5 says, "The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out."

Luke 6:43-45 says, "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." As Jesus teaches here, our inner person reveals our true self. The real person is who we are on the inside.

Mark 7:14-23 says, "Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'"

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods 'clean.')

He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"" Human behavior originates with the attitudes and motivations of the heart.

But people in the Bible didn't focus on emotions, did they?

The Bible contains many examples of how people examined their inner person and experienced change. One man who struggled with deep depression and anxiety was King David. Out of the depths of David's acquaintance with suffering, came the Psalms, containing much wisdom, comfort and relevance for today. Many of the Psalms David wrote reflected the loss and grief experienced by God's people, and many, such as Psalm 10, are also examples of how David responded to God. In Psalm 10, the first twelve verses describe affliction of the worst kind imaginable. David is oppressed and totally defeated by things completely out of his control. His loss could not be corrected in any way known to man, and he felt helpless. Then in verses 12 - 15, David turned his attention to God, and cried out to Him as helper, deliverer, vindicator, and One who is willing to act on behalf of the helpless. Finally, verses 16 - 18 displayed David's heart of gratitude and

praise for the mighty works of God. The expression of the human condition is clear. David's heart progresses from anxiety and depression to allowing his heart to be wooed by God and then to the joy of resting securely in God's place of victory.

An interesting item to note, however, is that David wrote almost 4 times as much text to describe the sorrow in his heart, than he took to describe God's intervention. Often we suffer by dragging out our affliction through worrying about aspects that are out of our control. we could however, as in the example of Psalm 10, listen to the message of our heart and cry out to invite God's healing presence into our lives.

Why does inner healing focus so much on the past? Since nothing can be done about the past, shouldn't we focus on the present and future?

Our primary caretakers as a child (usually our parents) are the primary influencers of our character and behavior as adults. Our belief system is shaped in our earliest years of childhood. How we respond to any circumstance in our life is shaped by the sum total of all our previous experiences. Therefore, if we respond incorrectly to hurtful situations as a child, harbor the negative emotion and do not learn how to release it properly, we form a

pattern (habit) of harmful response, most times without even consciously knowing what is going on. This happens to all of us in varying degrees, but when a child's vulnerability is taken advantage of in an abusive way by an adult, or the child is somehow traumatized, the wounds go particularly deep.

An abusive father may consistently tell his daughter, for example, that she is worthless and no good. She grows up believing this, and not even aware of what she is doing, she seeks and marries a husband just like her father. She seeks counseling because the situation in her marriage becomes more difficult to handle. She may be very successful in her career and have many credentials to prove to her mind that she is not worthless and no good, but her heart is surreptitiously seeking the 'no good' experience (because that is what she knows and feels 'comfortable' with). This person, in my belief, needs more than cognitive therapy to change her thinking processes regarding her present

circumstances, but she also needs a change in her heart to heal the past experiences which are causing the emotional pain. To receive genuine freedom, this may perhaps require forgiveness of her father (that is not excusing what he did) and perhaps working through some other issues of the past which have developed into wrong patterns of responding to hurts.

What is a central theme of inner healing?

Forgiveness is at the heart of transformation and sanctification. Forgiveness

is a gift. Christ forgiving us gives us the power to forgive others. Forgiving our offender releases God's supernatural power to work peace into the situation. Forgiveness does not mean sweeping offenses under the rug (so to speak), but openly acknowledging the need for Christ's work on the Cross to accomplish forgiveness in the deepest part of our heart. Unforgiveness towards God, ourselves, or another person (1 or more of these 3) feeds into

the root cause of almost every relational issue we face. We must be willing to cancel the indebtedness of the offending party (Matt 18:21-35). How we perceive and practice forgiveness determines how well we proceed through our healing process.

It is also very important to keep in mind that JESUS is the healer (not a counselor, pastor or prayer partner). Also, seeking Jesus is more important than seeking the healing. God as a triune being (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is much larger than the process of healing. God is more than able to heal (Num 12:13; Isa 50:2), but although it may not feel like it when we're hurting, there is more to life than being healed.

Hebrews 12:2-3 says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." It's all about Jesus!

References

Sandford, John and Paula (1982). Transformation of the Inner Man. Tulsa, OK: Victory House, Inc.

Smith, Edward (1999). Beyond Tolerable Recovery. Campbellsville, KY:

Family Care Publishing

The Holy Bible (New International Version)

Note: If you have a question related to inner healing which was not addressed by the topics above you can email it to me at Edward.hersh@verizon.net and I'll try to answer it for you. Further topics and information is available at: http://counseling.bluerockbnb.com .