Jesus My Lord and Savior
Jesus has changed my life and I want the world to know how much he loves them.
Freedom and Redemption from a Victim Spirit
For those that know me they may be surprised that I ever lived with a Victim Spirit. Actually I was even surprised when I realized where I came from to where I am now in my walk with God. For me it just shows how great the name of Jesus really is for redemption and freedom come and transformation happens. Sometimes when we take a glimpse back we realize that we have been freed from more than we can imagine. I was actually shocked as I made this realization tonight. I was thinking I have never felt like a victim in my life, I have always faced things head on and never felt defeated. Then there were these little flashes of things from my past and how I had responded to those things. It was like Holy Spirit giving me little snippets of things I said at various times in my life.
What those snippets revealed to me is that I have walked on a greater journey with Jesus then I could have ever imagined. I realized that I had lived a huge part of my life with a Victim spirit without even realizing it. What I realized is that the victim spirit can be very subtle at times and at other times it is a big loud mouth. Sometimes it even likes to bring along friend such as a spirit of fear and worry. Why it is no fun to have a party if you don’t have friends around, RIGHT!!! It was rather shocking to realize how easily we can partner with a victim spirit. It starts convincing us that we are just not getting any breaks in life, whether it is relationships, jobs, a place to live. We begin to focus on everything that is going wrong, I am sick all the time, we don’t have enough money, these are just some of the ways it sneaks in. Then fear and worry can come in to make it even worse. You have trouble sleeping because you are worried about how you are going to pay the rent or buy food. Or maybe it is, am I going to survive what this disease or illness that I was just diagnosed with.
You may be reading this and saying but that is not me. I don’t have a victim spirit, well I hope that is true. Like I said I was surprised when it was revealed to me tonight. But Holy Spirit revealed was that when we start to believe lies then we start to partner with those lies. It starts out small and then it can morph into something even bigger. For instance I grew up in a home with a mom that was not very close to me or my sister. Her life was more important than spending time with her kids as they were growing up and I had to grow up at 13. That was when my parents got divorced and my mom was out every night until all hours of the morning. What I have come to realize is that in that moment when I had to step in and help raise my sister, I started to partner with a Victim spirit. I believed that is just life and oh well you have to deal with it. For years I would complain to others about how terrible my childhood was. I would focus on all the wrongs that my mother did. Fast forward to now and I have found forgiveness in my heart, and now I remember the times that were clouded when she was a good mother. I get enjoyment telling her of those moments as she struggles with Alzheimer’s.
Then at 18 I got kicked out of the house and sided with the victim spirit again. I did not deserve that, my Dad was just being mean and cruel. I was being picked on for no reason, why do these things happen to me. I am just unwanted and unloved, but oh I have this man in my life that makes me feel better. But then the abuse starts and you again partner with the victim spirit. You pity yourself because of the situation that you are in rather than looking at the good things going on all around you. Oh you are homeless and living out of a car or a tent, well that was part of my life when I was 18 and 19. Again I wanted everyone to have pity on me for what had happened to me. But the real truth was that I was not a victim during those times. Everything that happened to me was because of an action that I took. In reality I was living out what my actions had resulted in. Yes I made some terrible choices but when I was living in the moment and for years after that I did not associate it with terrible choices. No I made comments like well I just can’t pick good men in my life. Life is just to hard as an adult, why does everyone pick on me. Why can’t I get a break. I have the worse Mother in the world.
I think you can begin to see the picture, I wallowed in self-pity. I would even cry out to God and ask why are these things happening to me. What did I do to deserve this, nothing ever seems to work out. Why won’t you allow me to have a child when people who are drug addicts and child abusers can? Some of you may be having one of those moments where the realization is hitting, oh I have believed the same types of lies about myself. But I can tell you there is hope and it is Jesus. The name of Jesus is greater than any other name and there is no equal to the name of Jesus. I started to partner with that victim spirit back in 2008 when I was told I had Hepatitis C. Oh I wallowed in self pity, and then I convinced myself that I deserved it because of the sinful life I lived when I was 18 and 19. I was ready to give up on life and to just stop fighting feeling like there was no use. But now I can look back and see that at that moment I chose not to partner any longer with that victim spirit. After a couple of days I stood strong and I started to all on the Lord. The Lord walked with me on that journey and it brought freedom and self discovery in the process. It brought happiness and hope in the middle of some tough times. But I came to really know that Jesus is always with me and he never leaves me. Really he is always there just waiting for us to call on him or to reach for him. Jesus will always be there to meet us in the darkest most broken places of our lives.
I stopped feeling like there was no hope. I stopped telling everyone how terrible my life had been. I stopped focusing on everything that had gone wrong in my life and I started to focus on the things that had gone well. Yes in my past I had many years of hard struggles that seemed unfair, but the truth was that in the middle of the hardest struggles good things were happening. Now they are just faint memories and I don’t remember names or faces of some. But I will never forget the loving Christian woman who took me shopping for clothes and some things for a home after I lost everything in a fire. Some complete stranger spent a day showing me the love of Jesus. Or the families that provided me work when I was living out of a car in Arkansas. They gave me some work to make a few dollars and then fed me a meal and gave me a place to sleep for a couple of nights. Again they were Christians that God placed in my path. As I look back I see similar things all through my life. I started to see that those memories were all clouded before by the lies I was believing from the Victim Spirit.
But when I stopped believing the lies all of a sudden I can remember all the good people who were in my life during some really difficult times. I can look back and see how blessed I was even when I was far away from God. The greatest things is that no matter how broken we are we are never to far away from God. All we have to do is call out to Jesus. Just that one name can bring redemption, and healing in your life. It took me over 30 years to figure this one thing out. For so long in my life I did not think God really cared about me. Why did God allow these things to happen. But I have been blessed with wisdom as I walk with Jesus now. My eyes have been opened to the blindness that I walked in for so long.
You may be struggling with a victim spirit in your life, and you may not even realize it. My prayer for you is that you find freedom in knowing that when you walk with Jesus you are not given a spirit of fear or of being a victim. Rather we are given a spirit of a sound mind. Yes a sound mind!!!! As we discover the freedoms that come from Jesus peace and comfort begin to wash over us. I did no special thing to find freedom. In fact I had been walking around for the last couple of days thinking that I had no idea how to relate to someone who was living with a victim spirit. But alas I was surprised to have it revealed to me tonight. That just lets you know that true freedom comes from Jesus and when you walk in that freedom your old ways fall away to reveal the new you. If you still are not sure just look for the friends of a victim, fear, worry, self-pity, sorrow. But Jesus brings us hope, joy, love, peace. What I have learned is that our actions can bring on circumstances that we have to deal with and live with, but we can get strength from Jesus to bring us through those things and to be stronger on the other side.
Lord I ask you to bless every reader with your peace, love, joy and hope in the midst of whatever they are going through. Jesus just bless them with someone who will walk into their lives and show them your love in some way. I pray for the blinders to be removed so that they can have a clearer picture and shift their focus to the good things that are happening around them. Jesus cover them in peace and comfort in knowing that you are with them no matter what they are going through. Amen.
Jesus My Lord and Savior 