Freedom from the Seven Prisons of Life
Freedom from Prison
The purpose of spreading the Good
News of Jesus Christ remains to spread the spiritual gifts of love, hope, and
faith who wish to understand one's individual relationship within
Christianity. The reading for today is Psalm
142 from David when he was in the cave delivering this prayer. “Set me free
from my prison, that I may praise your name.” Recently, I heard about an individual's life in
prison due to sending prayers from a Christian Leadership book through email to
another person.
He initially questioned how this could take place, then accepted the opportunity in
which God had presented. I needed to learn about his struggle. Through the combat counseling services, I learned of a unique case of an individual making the best out of bad circumstances who faced extreme trauma and adversity. Within
the facility, he witnessed and participated in salvation and liberation through
faith.
Gathering three days a week in
community, praying daily, and spending hours within the Bible. He learned an attitude of thanks and praise
for the simple things in life. The
thought of it could always be worse than this.
He gave thanks for the ability to have things that he had taken for
granted; a cup, warm water, food, shelter, companionship, and several bare
necessities. Humbled in the experience
an awakening occurred. He looked towards his faith as way to grow stronger in all dimensions of life. Noticing how the path had taken him down a particular a
road, he looked for ways to grow rather than die within days. He thought of 7 dimensions of his life:
Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, financial, occupational, and
social. Within these areas he had
identified pitfalls that lead me to prisons or a barrier preventing love and
God to exist within his life.
Introduction
Being persecuted for emailing a
prayer spreading the word of God in actions and healing wounds through
receiving Jesus Christ upon returning home to divorce papers, homelessness,
inability to speak to children, being charged with allegations, having feelings
of betrayal, isolation, and sadness created a darkness. Circumstances created
the unfortunate thought of taking his own life.
Tears rolled from his face, he was crying out to God, questioning
“why”. He wanted the pain to subside and
make it stop for good. He had to escape these Earthly pains of anguish. Then he
thought, “Just give me some hope, a sign or way to stand his ground, bear the
storm, and continue the fight”. He was knocked down much like before in the
Battle for Fallujah, yet this time he couldn’t get up like in the blast
before. This time was different that was
physical, however this was an emotional and spiritual knock out blast, lifting
me at the core of his being. Then,
hearing the words on the radio. He heard get on your knees and pray. Suddenly, a
vision of his children appeared with loving thoughts and then the thoughts of
this precious gift of life which God has provided. How could he forsake the
Almighty Father? He could not spend eternity in damnation with Satan. The tears
ceased from flowing from his prism water fluid field of vision. He spoke to a
close friend in fear of what took place. He told him could understand now more
than ever why people actually kill themselves in these life crises. The morning
sun came and he went to the altar, crying out to the Lord. Praying steady for
nearly two hours in deep meditation about the series of drastic life changing
events that took place. The priest walked out of his chambers and spoke to him.
He witnessed the pain and saw it flowing from his face. He laid his hands upon him and asked that he repeated prayers to God. He did so then
he asked him to forgive the adultery who had persecuted him for his beliefs. He
asked him to forgive them both. Trusting
within the Lord, he let go of the anger.
He had communicated with his counselor from the Wounded Warrior Regiment
who assured him that love is light and hate is heavy. God is love and he gave us his only begotten
Son for our forgiveness of sins. He tells us to forgive others if we wish to enter
his Kingdom in Heaven. He told him to say
aloud in the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke Satan every time the memory of
these events created thoughts of pain leading to angry emotions. Today as I write this I learned about the
blessing granted for forgiving. The only one who can forgive absolutely is
Jesus. The adage to forgive and forget
is unrealistic. The memories of
traumatic events will remain and reappear at times. We are mortal and cannot offer the same type
of ultimate and absolute forgiveness. It is also important to realize how forgiveness
offering in sincerity lifts our own spirits. This act of love towards human
beings is commanded as Christians. With
that, we then and only then are able to find peace and healing.
Physical
Physically, he had been dealing with
vanity and self-image as a way to bring about happiness. A leaner body with bigger muscles was
desired. He would see others and think "I
need to get bigger" allowing inferiority and self-consciousness to generate
negative thinking. Additionally, he would
think of challenges as being too difficult such as 100 pull-ups, or lifting the
maximum amount of weight on the machines, or running for two hours straight on
the yard. By surrendering himself to
Christ, he learned how to recover from the situation and think about the verse,
“I can do all things through Christ.”
The possible became possible through faith and belief within the
physical gifts God provided. When he
looked in the mirror, he was reminded that he was a masterpiece created by God
uniquely different in his appearance. Soon
the physical prison walls were broken and the ability to love his physical body
for what it was occurred.
Emotional
Within the emotional prison, from
traumatic events such as a divorce, not being able to see his children,
revisiting combat experiences he questioned if in fact he was lovable as a human
being. He recognized his detachment and
inability to express simple human emotions such as tears and happiness. These feelings of being unloved, numb, and
hurt subsided by the ever great presence of God’s love for his children. As a child of God, he recognized these chains
can be broken through accepting the gift of love from the Lord, Jesus
Christ. God loved the world so much that
he gave us his only begotten son, Jesus Christ.
As Jesus suffered for his sins, he learned how to forgive himself and shed
the shame, guilt, and blame for the events that transpired within his life. Often bad things do happen in life to good
people. The acknowledgement that we
often suffer for a reason presented itself.
The choice to continue suffering was ultimately within his control. As he surrendered these burdens of the past,
his emotional prison was lifted up in the heart.
Mental
In the mental domain, negative
thinking such as “I should be dead”, “why did I survive”, and I am a failure”,
which sabotaged his ability to think positively. Thoughts of worry, fear,
anxiety, and doubt plundered the ability to grow closer to the Lord. He
developed a habit of changing his neurological pathways and synapse by
expressing self-affirmations such as “I am lovable”, “I will honor those fallen
by living the best life”, and “I grow through failure”. This inner monologue shifted as he read the
word of God in the Bible. I believe in
Jesus and Holy Spirit and the ability to help us reach a point of self-actualization
and acceptance of our trials and tribulations within this life. We can see this through this gentleman's adversity.
Spiritual
The spiritual prison existed with
the presence of the devil who tried to find ways to destroy, steal, and kill
the things in which he loved. The sins of
wrath, pride, and jealously existed prompting the other cell blocks of the
prison to unite in the persecution. The joint effort was to subdue the ability to feel and think love
throughout the days. He read the
scripture with others and learned how to put on the whole Armor of God. Fellow Christians came to the prison and
delivered divine messages which in turn helped restore hope, joy, and love within each
of the prisoners. Within the love shared
for humanity, the devil could not enter into his spirit. Witnessing the present of the Lord at work,
changing lives, non-believers accepting Jesus Christ for the first time in
their life, were evidence to solidify his will within those walls.
Financial
Financially a prison existed of
greed, envy, and gluttony. The lavish
lifestyle of getting everything he wanted as materialistic possessions had all
been removed. He realized these
superficial objects had no real value within his life. He did not need to equate success with having
more possessions or wealth. He learned
that God will provide all that we need rather than what we want. He learned that philanthropy and giving to
those in need with monetary resources was a blessing. The simple fact that we cannot take money or
objects with us to Heaven was evident. He understood that needs are met for food, water, shelter, transportation, and
education. In order to pay it forward, one must obtain resources and God does
in fact want to bless us. He also wants
to witness our alms-giving, tiding, and giving was spoken by the preachers
also. The love of money is the root of
evil. Having money itself did not mean he
was doomed. Yet the awareness that what
he did with the money could benefit the human race brought great clarity. After meeting the needs of his family, then he
had the freedom to help those less fortunate.
Occupational
Within the occupational space, he
tossed with the traditional idea of work in definition. With introspection, he became aware that most
associate titles with clout and success throughout the capitalistic economic
structure we have created. Within the
rat race to compete for resources, the power structure of our lives are based
mostly on wage earnings. A perspective
shift occurred where he looked at what do I want to do with the short time on
Earth. The real question was, “define
your passion or love”. The answer of
helping others became apparent. How then can he create a way to earn resources
to do God’s will and commandment?
Knowledge of himself allowed the ability to have a desire to spread love
and live love throughout the day in an occupation. Freedom from expectations and beliefs held by
others occurred. It was important to
utilize the God given gifts and talents, as he giveth and he taketh away all
things. To honor God he found purpose and
meaning in spreading passion. The
rewards in Heaven were more important than the world’s wealth often found
through greed. He asked himself, "what if I
wasn’t paid to work, what would I do with my time".
The shift in paradigm allowed the prison walls to fall.
Social
Lastly, the social prison in his
life had to deal in large with comparison.
Comparison is the thief of joy in this world. In the current world, accessibility to
information about others through social media can create a constant
comparison. These observations lead to
the shackles of jealously, envy, and coveting others through lust. Within the norms of social influences,
vanity, pride, and expectations dictate his behavior frequently. Upon recognition of this living for others
rather than God, a peace fell upon him.
In a world in which he could be anything, he reasoned to be himself. The amount of likes, friend requests, and
comments did not carry significance. Enlightened
and free, he learned to be happy with himself offering acceptance and love.
In closure, it was okay to grant forgiveness, grace, and appreciation. In order to move forward from the
prison, he had to recognize that he was never alone, never unloved, and capable
of loving God above all else. A general
attitude of thanks and praise freed him from all these prisons and chains of the
past. He surrendered himself to Jesus
Christ and cast his burden upon him. Love
conquers all things, eliminating the enemy from within through faith, thereby
saving our souls.
