Breaking Spiritual Strongholds and Find Freedom in Christ

Hi, and welcome back to Faithfield Living.

This is your host, Kristin.

Today I have a great guest interview for you.

We're going to talk about how do we let go or release something that's had a hold on us.

That can be a spirit of panic.

It can be fear of rejection or loneliness.

It can be an addiction or it can be a trauma that we've been that's just gotten a hold of us.

It can be a spirit of bitterness or unforgiveness.

Whatever it is, today's episode is all about how do we get delivered from that?

And it starts with changing our thinking and then asking God for a different answering of different prayer.

It's powerful.

I think you're going to get so much out of it.

And it gives you a love list of what you can do in your faith practice to experience freedom that God promises us, to experience all of the love that is there for us.

And my guest today really talks about that.

We want love to propel us.

We don't want to get stuck in fear or other things that are holding onto us and let those things repel us.

Before we jump into today's episode, I did want to let you know I have a free download for you that's perfect as we kick off the new year.

It's called Joy Rising, and it's a daily journal sheet for you to fill out to just recount.

What are you grateful for today?

How has God moved in your life?

In other words, where has he been present that you've noticed?

And then also, what things in your day were joyful or brought you joy?

Because when we focus on these things, our joy will rise up.

We will have more joy than ever.

So head over to KristinFitch.com and go to my workbook section and you can grab that free download now.

And you can join my community where I send out weekly emails to you to encourage you in your faith life and in all of the different areas of your life.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I would like to welcome our guest, Heather o'.

Brien.

She is an author of no Fear Allowed and several other books.

She's also a prophetic healing coach and the host of Heal With God podcast.

Her focus is helping Christians hear God clearly, heal emotional wounds and walk confidently in the purpose through inner healing and deliverance.

And I'm excited because I think at the end of the day, as her and I talked about before we started recording, all of us just want freedom, right?

We want the freedom that Christ promises us along, of course, with salvation.

But he also wants us to be healed.

He wants us to be healthy, mind, body, and spirit.

And so today we're going to talk about this from a lens of what are things that we can do in our lives so that we can hear God, we can work with God to break the chains that might be holding us back and whatever those are, whatever we're feeling, and we're going to dig into that.

So I hope today will give you action steps and things to consider, adding to your biblical armor or biblical tools, so that you will feel your best and be able to do everything God's asking you to do.

So, Heather, welcome to the show.

Hey, thank you so much, Kristen.

It's so lovely to be here.

I'm excited for this conversation.

Yeah, me too.

Thank you.

Okay, so why don't you tell us a little bit about how did this all.

How did you get into all this?

And, you know, both your own journey.

Right.

Heal with God and then also how you're encouraging and helping people in this space.

Yeah.

Well, so I was a Christian as far back as I can remember.

And it wasn't until I was 30 years old that I realized I could actually hear God's voice, even though I was a Christian this whole time.

And that really woke me up.

It really ignited a passion inside of me that was.

It propelled me forward.

It was just like, you know, once you.

You find the thing that works, it's like you can't go back.

I was thinking lately about, like, what is.

What's a parallel?

Like, I found this dishwasher detergent that actually works.

Same dishwasher.

I've tried multiple different kinds of detergent, but this one actually works.

So guess what?

I'm never going back.

Yeah, I'm never going to not use that one.

I'm not.

I even one time I got so mad at myself, I went and bought the store brand that said it was the same thing just because it was cheaper, but it still didn't do the same thing.

And that's how my healing journey with God is.

It's like I found the thing that works, that heals, that delivers, that brings satisfaction, the.

The longing of my heart that I thought, you know, what would be found in TV or other vices and things in my life.

It was found when I heard God's voice.

And it brought such healing that it's like I'm just screaming it to the rooftops.

Did you know God still speaks?

Did you know he wants to talk to you personally?

And so that was part of my healing journey as I Started to learn how to hear God's voice.

And in that, I started healing.

I started healing physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally.

There's not one direction that he didn't hit.

I love it.

Okay, so, yeah, let's just start there.

Let's just start with how do we hear God's voice in such a busy world?

And we're bombarded every day, as we know, by noise and things that want our attention.

So we all know even if we take a little time and we do prayer, you know, or get quiet to get with God, it still can be hard.

Right.

So what have you learned and what are you sharing with us about what can we do to hear God's voice more clearly or more regularly?

Yeah, well, my first thought as you're saying that is I really.

I like methods.

I like easy.

I'm a mom, I'm busy, I'm homeschooling, I'm running a business, doing many things at my church.

Like all of us, my life is very full and I'm blessed to have it so full.

I think it's God's design for us to.

To have things to do and to steward them well.

And to steward them well, you also have to put God first.

So it's like that's the first commandment, is put God first.

And how do you practically do that when you have so many other things going on in your mind, going on in the actual world?

And so I've come up with a love list.

It used to be a checklist.

Okay.

So I would say to you, I've been delivered from ocd.

I've been delivered from perfectionism.

I've been delivered from having to have control of everything.

Yes.

And now it's a love list.

Because I think that we still need basic disciplines in our life and structures, routines, whatever word you want to use.

Because they unto something, though it's unto love for me now it's.

I have these things that I do with God to help me put him first.

And it turn.

It's.

It is routine, but it also is routine because of experience.

I've experientially found his love and his voice by doing these things.

And then, like you said, well, how do you hear his voice in the busyness?

Well, if you've put God first in your everyday life in the middle of the mess, you'll know exactly how to reach him and how to talk to him because he's your best friend and you know his voice.

He says that my sheep know my voice, and they'll Call to me and I'll hear them and I'll know them.

And I do know that he knows us by name and we need to know Him.

And so the, the love list is this Bible worship, prayer, community.

Bible worship, prayer and community.

And so when I put those things into my daily practices, it becomes so easy to discern the voice of the Lord.

So Bible looks like, now remember, this is a love list.

So I do this because I love him, but also because I love you.

Yeah.

And, and it's.

So you want me to read my Bible, right?

You want me to take time to pray because I'm so much nicer when I do.

Yeah.

Because love comes from God.

And he fills us whenever we're connected to Him.

He fills us with his love.

And then we have love for ourself.

And then I have love for you.

And it's an overflow of love for you.

I'm not giving you from my exhausted steam.

I'm giving from you a place of overflow.

Because he's given me so much.

Now I have enough for me and, and I have enough for you.

But it's only because I put him first.

People often ask me, how do you have so much time to do so many things?

And I would say to you, you might not like the answer.

I actually take my Sabbath very seriously.

Okay, so this is going somewhere.

So I take my Sabbath really seriously.

My little kid, I have a little, little buddy who's eight.

And he'll ask, you know, at the end of every night while I'm brushing his teeth, what's tomorrow?

What are we doing tomorrow?

And tomorrow, if it's Saturday, I'm saying we're sa.

Which means we're going to church, and then we're, we're going to come home and rest.

And I take, and I tell them we're going to Sabbath really hard.

But all of that is to say I Sabbath for one whole day out of the seven days a week.

But then all the other six days of the week, I Sabbath by putting him first with my Bible worship and prayer community.

Yeah, so that was a long winded answer.

But now we things, right?

How secure is voice in the midst?

Yeah, I, first of all, I 100% agree with you.

When I don't get in the word, when I don't make the time, especially earlier, right in the day, I, yeah, I show up in the world differently.

You know, not, not like opposite, but like, for sure, I can feel a different type of calm and peace and patience within me than other days.

If if, like, for some reason, I missed it, for some strange reason, right?

And it's not because I, like, I become this Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, but I can feel a difference, right.

Like, it's like a litmus.

I can just tell that there's a different settledness about me, you know, when I.

When I prioritize.

And like you said, you know, like you said, I mean, of course I talk about this on the show, but, yeah, when we put him first or put him at the top, everything else seems to go a little bit.

No matter what we're going through, it goes a bit better, right?

It really does.

You go through it in a.

In a more calm state, for sure.

And like you said, love, for sure.

One thing that really stood out to me as you were talking, you said, I'm not a, you know, Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde thing, but I've actually seen something really interesting.

Maybe you name this interesting, too.

But for.

For the people that I coach, I lead them into this.

This is the very first step.

Before we go a little bit deeper, if we do it, if we want to do any deliverance, if we want to do.

Go go deeper in whatever inner healing that they want first, I need to know that they're consistent in their Bible worship and prayer.

Because if they're not, then they're not full of God.

They're going to be full of.

They're full of something.

We're always going to be full of something else.

And I find that when.

They'Ve been full of the Bible worship and prayer and community, their addictions that they want to get free of are less frequent, but they still happen, right?

And so it still feels like a Dr. Jekyll, Little Hyde kind of, who am I today?

What just happened?

I thought I was.

So I was.

I'm doing all the right things.

And so I kind of have a heart for that, too, because I've been there, too, where I'm like, where.

What am.

What am I doing?

Like, I've read my Bible today.

I remember asking God this question.

I read my Bible today, God.

I. I did the things and I took time in prayer.

And this is.

Now, this was a learning experience.

I remember this one particular day.

I didn't feel just right.

This happened twice.

And this was.

This is how I got to my four things.

Is God said, well, you didn't take time to do any worship songs today.

So I'm.

I'm a podcast lover.

I. I love learning.

I. I was listening to sermons, I was listening to.

I was out in the yard, I was getting the sun, I had plenty of sleep.

I read my Bible.

And I heard him say, you didn't do any worship songs today.

And there was something about that.

I was like, okay, because I, I didn't get in my car, I didn't go to church.

I.

And those were kind of my places to get worship.

And he said, no, you're gonna have to make that part of your routine.

Now see, I'm.

That was me learning how to be a stay at home mom after being an accountant and being in the office.

Right.

For I don't know how many years, you know?

Yeah.

And so that's how I came up with the four things.

The, and the same thing happened another time when, when I was like, I was just feeling so sad.

Just like, what is wrong with me?

God?

And I, now I'm listening, I'm listening to his voice and his voice brings about all of this.

And he says, I say to him, I read my Bible, I've listened to sermons, I've even done the worship song.

And he said, you haven't talked to another person today.

And maybe I'm to some stay at home moms today, but I know what that felt like.

And I, I didn't have a group of friends.

I didn't have a community any.

I had to form it.

I had to on purpose form that community where I could talk to someone every day.

I mean, my husband was gone at work all day.

When he came home, he did not have capacity to hear.

All day.

Yes, well.

And to be honest, men do, most men and women, we do operate different women, we can sit here if we're just sitting together in the same place and have a conversation for three hours.

My husband wants to get.

He's an engineer, he wants to kind of get to the point and he doesn't want to have chit chat.

Chit chat.

And I don't mean our chit chat's not relevant, but to us it's deep and meaningful no matter what it's about.

But it's not always right to sometimes to men in the same context and.

It'S not always their place to meet.

That's of course, yes, but I 100 agree with you.

First of all, I don't know at what point, but for a long time I've listened to worship music.

When I go in the kitchen, I turn it on.

When I go to my bedroom to get ready, I turn it on.

When I'm in the car, I have it on my phone now, of course Some days it's like off and on all day when I'm not really focused on it, you know, something I'm working on.

Or sometimes I have it on the background because I can still listen while I'm working, but I'm with you.

There are days when I got on a walk and I'm the same.

I listen to podcasts, I listen to sermons, I listen to worship music.

Sometimes I have to turn it all off and have quiet.

Yes.

But I just have to know in my soul, as I'm starting to look like, oh, a podcast.

Oh, okay.

I, like, I didn't listen to his sermon from this week or I finding nothing new or nothing's sitting with me.

So then I'm like, what do I.

What do I want to do now?

You know?

Because it's like none of these are working for me.

Like, they're not hitting.

So then I'll be like, maybe I'll just start with music and then some.

And normally that's good and I'm good, but other times I'm like, no, it's just.

I feel unsettled.

And so I'll turn it off and then I'll do the rest of my walk quietly.

Right.

Noticing, observing, praying.

Yes, but to your point, I had to listen to what exactly like you're saying.

I had to listen to myself and figure out, like, what is it that I need?

It will fill me up more.

Right.

And of course, it's often, Usually those things.

But my point is sometimes I've already done the things like you said, morning, but maybe that day was more stressful or maybe my mind's on something and so trying to get through something.

What I really need is just to be filled up and not have to think about it, you know, or like you said.

Yeah, I. I work from home, and so.

Right.

I don't.

I, of course, I have, like, three sons at home and my husband.

They're all old enough.

They're like, you know, they're college age.

But my point is, is they're not the same as many days I go on a walk with a girlfriend or I see, you know, people or whatever, but it's the same.

I have to continue to nurture those relationships and make them a priority in my life, you know, and of course, I have lots of online stuff, but absolutely.

It's.

It's so important, you know, because sometimes you just need that encouragement from them or a listening ear or just to know that you're.

You're not the only one.

Right.

Walking through whatever it Is.

And so, yeah, I agree with you.

And I think those are.

While they seem obvious, I agree with you that a lot of people aren't fitting all those things in on a regular or daily basis.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

Love it.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about.

So obviously, like you said, 1.

When you start talking to people, you're like, okay, are you doing these things, like, or what do you need to kind of add in?

But from there, what is the next thing?

Right.

You're trying to help people get unstuck, block things.

Or, you know, if they're caught in, like you said, it could be that they're holding on to, you know, emotion, something that happened to them.

It could be an addiction.

Right.

It's all these different things that we get caught up in.

And so then do you start next with talking about deliverance, or do you start next with.

Yeah, so let's go through what that really means, because it's this word that maybe sounds intimidating, and then we'll walk through the next step.

Yeah, it can sound a little bit strange or peculiar.

So before you turn us off, let me explain plane.

It is weird.

It is.

It is altogether different.

But isn't that Jesus?

So I believe that Jesus died on the cross for three things, not just one.

A lot of us just stop at the salvation experience, which is amazing.

But a lot of times in the word, where the.

Where the word salvation comes about, if you dig deeper, it means salvation, healing, and deliverance means all three things.

It does.

And.

And if you look back at Jesus when he's teaching us how to pray, he says, on earth as it is in heaven.

And so we're.

We're waiting for this.

I used to call it being.

We're kind of Christian, suicidal.

I can't wait till I get to heaven.

And that's.

I don't think that that's God's heart for us.

I think that he wants us to be wherever we're at.

That's right.

And be fully possessed by enjoying today, enjoying the right now, the present moment with God.

And right now, he's right here.

And so when we're worried about tomorrow, we're full of anxiety.

When we're worried about yesterday and what they did and what they said, with full depression and hurt and sometimes demons.

Okay, so let's go there for just a minute.

Inner healing and deliverance, kind of the same, kind of different.

It's different steps.

I think the deliverance is changing the way you think it literally is.

Romans 12:2.

It says something like be trans.

Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and be transformed by thinking differently.

Now I'm just, I just jumbled up a bunch of different translations there.

But it really means change the way you think.

And if you go a little bit deeper, change the way you think also is the definition of repentance.

So to repent means to say I'm sorry for something.

But if you think of like a little kid when they're telling you you're.

They're sorry for doing xyz, you say you think to yourself, okay, they said the words, but do they believe it in their heart so much that they're not going to do it again?

That's what you're hoping as their mom.

Yeah.

And that's what God's hoping for us when we repent, are we sorrowful and mourn?

Do we mourn the sin that we committed enough that we're not going to keep doing it?

And when we do, but then we're still stuck.

I would say to you, you need a one more layer of deliverance.

So deliverance is changing the way you think and also sometimes casting out devil.

So if you can't stop, if you want to stop, you hate the sin, you literally call it sin and hate this sin, but then you still can't stop doing it.

There's probably a devil that just needs to be told to go.

And that's the step that I didn't know was available to me was an even an issue.

I thought, I mean it never, honestly it never crossed my mind.

I wasn't having the debate, oh, Christians can't have devils.

I just didn't even have the thought that I had a devil in my life.

Actually, before we dig into that, I.

Will tell you I feel very similar to that which is same.

I grew up my whole life, you know, going to church and I mean I was raised Catholic and don't wrong, that's a whole other discussion.

And I don't align with the people that think Catholics aren't Christians.

That's insane to me because they're all Christian.

I mean, that's where it actually came from right before the Protestant Reformation.

But anyways, the point of me saying that is I always believed in Jesus, all the things my whole life.

But it wasn't until.

I don't know, in the last 10 years for like beyond what scripture said that I actually understood that like hearing the word spiritual warfare was so much more than I ever comprehended prior to that.

Like I really didn't understand, like, oh wait, like this could be actually be tied to something, you know, a curse, Demonic.

What?

Like, I didn't get it.

And then I started hearing more about it, probably because I was diving more into this area, and I was like, holy cow.

And then I'd hear people that never talk about their faith.

All of a sudden, like, people that have big profiles start talking about spiritual warfare.

And I'm like, oh.

Like, my point being is, I think a lot of us.

Okay, okay.

There's like, Satan, but beyond that, we just kind of.

Unless you had somebody.

Like, of course we've heard stories, Right.

About, like.

Possession, but it's like, I've never physically seen that.

Like, not in a way that was obvious, you know, but.

But there's all these subtle things that we don't realize.

We have a.

Something has a holding us.

Right.

Is really saying.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Like you.

I. I was a little bit oblivious to it as well.

Huh.

And I think the enemy would love for us to stay oblivious.

Yes.

That it's.

And it's not.

Ignorance is bliss.

Its ignorance is.

Is actually keeping us stuck.

And so that's kind of where I get so passionate about this.

Like, I started hearing God's voice to heal, and he started telling me, hey, you're.

You're in spiritual warfare.

There's a devil.

And then teaching me how to kick the devil out is a whole nother level.

And it's not as hard as you think.

You don't have to be all certified and trained.

I mean, there's.

There are different levels of devils.

There are.

And I don't want to give any prop to the devil, but.

And.

And it is always easier to have someone who is already one step ahead of you to help you through this.

And God loves community.

Remember, that was one of my four things.

He loved community.

And that's where I've seen my freedom happen a lot of times, is because I confessed my sins.

Yeah.

One to another.

To my friends that I might be healed.

And healed and delivered goes together.

I'll give you an example.

For instance, there was this sin in my life that I was too embarrassed to tell anybody about.

And I. I think I.

Because we get to this place where we're like, well, I have the Bible, I have God, I've got Jesus, I got the Holy Spirit.

What can't I do?

And I love that mentality, except for it's not completely biblical, because he says that we need each other.

He says we need each other.

He.

We need each other in community.

To.

To war with each other.

We're not supposed to be doing this all on our own.

We're supposed to do it with God, but also with others.

He speaks through others and he doesn't want.

And so for, I think, I want to say almost two years, I had this secret sin in my life that I hated.

I knew it's a sin, but I couldn't figure out how to depart from it.

I didn't know what I didn't know.

And once I finally did, James 5:16 says, confess your sins one to another, that you might be healed.

Once I confessed, I was like, dude, okay, I'm so embarrassed, but I'm struggling with this thing.

I confess it to them and they were like, huh, I wonder if it's this other thing.

Because I had art.

I was in community with them.

Yeah, they already knew some of my other things going on in my life.

And they were like, I think this goes together.

And I was like, it so does, but why couldn't I figure it out?

And I even went to God in prayer about this.

God, this was plain as day.

Why, when you showed me, when I asked you, and he kind of slapped me on the hand in the nicest way and said, I want you to be vulnerable with other people.

I don't want you to figure this out because we've become a hermit.

Yeah.

We've become a recluse.

And we are not attractive whenever we're not vulnerable to other people.

Like me confessing that I actually had sins that I was dealing with is actually attractive.

I've had more people start listening to my show and really understanding the word of God whenever I actually give examples, oh, I was struggling.

I don't have it all figured out.

Well, that's exactly right.

I mean, first of all, you know, just like testimony and I mean, testimony about anything, like healing of any sort.

We're meant to use it for other people's good.

In other words, like, if whatever we walk through, if we don't share that, you know, whether it's divine healing or it's breaking free from something.

Right.

That's had hold on us, if we don't do that, then someone else isn't going to hear a story and have that encouragement that, that they can experience that too.

But not only that, like you said, if we share what's going on with us, then people, one, are like, well, yeah, we kind of knew that some sometimes, right?

They're like, well, if you just asked or if you just shared with us, we would have told you what we saw.

But two, right.

We're supposed to walk with each other, right.

Through the joy, but also through the hard seasons, whether that's grief or battling something.

So we're meant to do it, as you said, in community, which is so powerful.

But, yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

You can't do life on your own.

You know, you can try, but it's.

It's not the same at all.

And so it's not the same, and you're just not going to walk in the same kind of freedom and joy.

I love how you said that because the.

If you go backwards, the word says, like, rejoice with those who are.

Who are rejoicing and mourn with those who are mourning.

Why?

Because we're supposed to do life together.

That's right.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think it's powerful.

Like you said, you know, when we share and we're supposed to.

And of course, we're not saying you have to go share with everyone.

We're saying share with someone that's safe and that you can confide in and that will keep your, you know, whatever you're struggling with, you know, amongst just that group of people, you know, so, you know, that isn't going to use it in some hard, negative way.

So, of course we're saying, like, you don't go tell whoever.

Tell somebody that you already have a trusted relationship with.

I would even go one step further, like, and say, be spirit led.

About even.

Even your pastor might not be the right person.

That's right.

Sometimes just because they have a title in your life, best friend, husband, pastor, that doesn't mean that they are the person.

I think we need to ask God.

God.

I'm struggling with this because here's the thing.

There is someone who has the keys to help you through your healing.

Yeah.

And it's usually because they've already been through it.

That's right.

Or.

Or they have some kind of experience in it.

And it's not always your pastor, it's not always your husband, it's not always your best friend.

I mean, I've just been burned so many times that I now I'm like, holy Spirit, you will leave me.

You will shut.

Every door needs to be shut.

You will cut the conversation off that I'm fixing to open up.

I've had that many times where I'm fixing to tell them, and somehow the conversation gets cut off, you know, And I'm like, oh, they're not the person.

And you need to listen to that.

That's the God.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

I mean, but it is so true if some, I'm not saying if someone hasn't walked through something, they can't be a voice of spiritual wisdom for you.

But what we are saying is if there are cases where that's true though, right, where they're not going to have the right, or God just hasn't spoken to them about what's going on, you know, or when they hear you, they don't kind of have that prophetic understanding or message for you.

But I mean, just yesterday I was interviewing a pastor who has, he is a pastor at a huge church in Texas and he recently wrote a book that's about to come out.

And of course it took longer than that to work through it.

But, but the point was, is prior to that, no, he didn't want to walk through that.

Nobody wants to walk through many of the things we have to walk through.

Or, but, but I was like, but now he's sharing about that experience.

He's not keeping it secret so he can help people in a different way when he's pastoring them or through his, some of the words in his book.

His book wasn't all about that, but it was.

He did share those vulnerable experiences, but that allows people to hear that conversation.

And he said, just because we're pastors doesn't mean we don't struggle with the same things other people struggle with.

But sometimes we forget that.

But if he had never walked through that, I'm not saying he couldn't help somebody prior to that with somebody struggling with that, but, but he's going to have a different depth of knowledge of how he walked through, how that felt and he will be able to help more people who've struggled with that now, you know, so it doesn't mean we want to go through the thing, but it will be used to help someone else walk through that, you know, exactly.

Like some of the struggles that I've experienced in my life, the pastors and the leaders in my life had never experienced, had no clue what I was dealing with.

And so I, I even felt like they won't have a clue now.

I could have been wrong.

It could have been.

That's right.

It's not always equal to equal.

I mean we're not saying that, but that's to your point, why you have to.

It has to be.

You have to be discerning about it.

Right.

Like, is.

Is God saying, like, okay, maybe this person or they say enough that you're like, you know what?

I think they're going to be somebody that I can confide in and might be able to, you know, let me share this with them, and then it.

It be something that's beneficial.

So.

Absolutely.

Okay, so what else would you tell us after?

Like, we understand that, right?

Like, okay, you know, we want to do those daily things.

We want to understand, you know, we want to share it with somebody so that we can try to break free from this, but that there are some things that can get a hold of us that we might want to work with somebody or understand.

What are those prayers we can pray over?

Right.

What we're going through?

Because there's obviously those as well.

So what else would you just say beyond that?

Like, how do we get.

How do we break free of these blocks or the things that are.

We're struggling with?

Because a lot of us as you know, get stuck.

So I know one of the things you talk about is we need to do things different.

Yes.

If it's not.

We're not feeling freedom from some of the things we're struggling with.

So I like to say just, you've been praying, probably.

I'm usually talking to Christians.

You've been praying, you've been doing.

You've been praying the same prayer, though.

So what if we pray a different prayer?

What if we ask God a different question?

And so, like, I like methods.

I like things that work that.

That are short, sweet, to the point.

And so one example is this one client was so mad at God because she wanted to get free of reaching to alcohol to meet her needs.

And she.

She's like, I've been praying for years for.

And I said, well, what have you been praying?

And so I want you listener, listen, analyze this.

Think about this.

That thing that you want to get free of.

What have you been praying for you to get free of it?

And she said, I've been praying that God would take the desire away.

And I said, okay, how's that working for you?

And obviously it wasn't.

And that just made her a little bit more mad.

And I'm not trying to make you mad here, but I want to help you see what you're doing is not working.

And so it's time to do something different and different.

Looks like, well, God, why do I want to Drink.

What need is it meeting for me?

That's right.

There's a lot of different questions you can ask, especially if it's an addiction.

What need is it meeting?

When did I start?

You want to assess the situation.

When did I start doing this?

What was going on in my life when I started?

Was there a breakup?

Was there a divorce?

Was there a hurt?

Was there a job that ended?

Did someone die?

What happened in your life that created this thing to start?

And.

And you might tell me.

Well, Heather, I've been.

I've been feeling anxiety my whole life.

I don't remember a time when I haven't.

So we could go to addictions.

We could go to different things.

And there are some things that come in the womb.

Listen, there are things that you are born with because.

And it's not because you did anything.

It's not because something tragic happened to you apart from you were born into it.

And that still is demonic and needs to be dealt with.

And so God can even show you that.

I've had God show me that.

When.

As soon as he says, the person says, I. I've had anxiety, low level anxiety my whole life.

Yeah, I've.

No, the Holy Spirit has.

Has come in and said, oh, this is the spirit of panic.

I feel like someone needs to hear this.

So I'm just going to bring this out and you have to name it.

Okay.

So I'm telling you the next step, you have to find out when it came in, what happened.

Then you have to name it.

Yeah.

And sometimes we just call it anxiety.

Sometimes we just call it the spirit of fear.

And I'd say, okay, but is that working for you?

Because it's probably not.

You need to name it deeper fear of what?

Yeah, for me, I've been freed.

And you.

If you don't know what you've been freed of, I would say you haven't had deliverance.

Okay, I'm being really straightforward here, but I'll ask you, have you ever had a deliverance sessions that people will say, yeah, I did.

And I said, what'd you get free of?

And they can't name it.

And I'm like, oh, honey, so you need to know the name of it.

And then you need to understand what the name of it is.

I've even had people say, come back with all these names of.

Of spirits that they got free of.

And I'm like, what does that mean to you?

And they don't know.

And so it's a.

I don't know.

Maybe the people got.

Maybe they got a devil cast out of them, but they're still struggling, so probably not.

Yeah.

And so name it something that you understand is what I'm saying.

Fear of punishment, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of loneliness.

The spirit of panic is a thing.

Now, I have heard people say spirit of anxiety and spirit of depression.

Sometimes that works.

Yeah, sometimes that is a thing.

Spirit of suicide is a thing.

But sometimes it is deeper than just what you're feeling.

It's deeper.

Why do you feel depressed?

Why do you feel sad?

What like you real.

Why are you anxious?

Where did it come from?

And it.

And a lot of times it goes down to a trauma you've experienced that you've never dealt with.

It's just low level traumas over life.

You've not forgiven people.

You haven't learned how to forgive.

You haven't.

Maybe you have a spirit of bitterness.

Well, it started with unforgiveness.

And so you really got to get down deep.

One more level.

One more level, one more level.

And once you get down to the level.

So I.

This is really easy.

Except for this is easy for me.

Okay.

So we name it, we break partnership with it and we tell it to go.

So it's really just three steps to, to the deliverance.

But I.

All of this is with the Holy Spirit.

I just have to bring that back.

It's not because I'm so good that I have all this figured out.

It's the Holy Spirit says, analyze the situation.

Let's find out what beliefs they have behind this.

That's keeping this devil there.

Remember I said change the way you think.

That's step one of deliverance.

Then you change the way you think by understanding what you think.

And only the police can bring this.

To the, to the, to the surface.

Because we don't know.

We don't know our own heart.

We really don't.

We don't know what we're thinking.

We think it's all rational and reasonable and it's not until the word meets the spirit that we have truth.

Yeah, absolutely.

I guess.

Just what else do you want to.

Share with us about?

Just encouraging us to hear God, that we can have inner healing and that we can experience more of the fruit of the Spirit.

Because like you said, we both said this.

God wants us healed.

He wants us healthy.

He doesn't want things to have a hold of us.

Right.

He wants us free from lies we tell ourselves.

He wants us free from things that are holding on to us, that are not allowing us to step into everything.

God has for us.

So what else would you just share this maybe that we haven't covered?

Yeah.

Well, just to summarize all of this, I would say it all has to go back to love.

We do everything because of love.

And if we're not doing it, if we're not pursuing our healing or whatever freedom from whatever it is, it could just be because we haven't assessed the consequences.

And I like to go back to love because Jesus made it really simple.

He says, love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

And sometimes we're just thinking about ourself and the consequences to ourself and we don't step out, we don't go further.

We stay in depression, we stay in anxiety, we stay in addictions and sin that we wish we could get out of.

We would love to lose 50 pounds, however it feels too hard.

Yeah, but when we assess the consequences, we're only thinking about ourselves.

And the thing that often propels us is when we think about the consequences of our, our testimony.

Like how are we representing God in, in this depression, in this anxiety and this war, in this addiction, how are we representing God?

We're probably not doing it very well if, if other people around us know that we're sad all the time, we're in bed all the time, or we're, you know, constantly full of anxiety and worry, we're probably not representing God very well because he's not an anxious God.

He tells us not to worry.

And so that's one consequence is we're, we're not representing him well.

The other consequences that everyone around you is getting affected, right?

Absolutely.

To love the other people around you means you have to love yourself.

And so if I, a lot of the, the reasons that I broke free of like smoking, for instance, I, I wanted to quit smoking before I ever became pregnant because I already assessed the consequence.

I didn't want to smoke while I was pregnant.

I didn't want my kids to see me smoke, and I didn't want them to inhale my secondhand smoke.

I assessed the consequences.

And that is the thing.

I was like, I'm not getting pregnant until I figure this out.

And so sometimes we just have to do that.

We have to assess the consequences.

Now that was just my specific example, but it could be any of those things that it's like we are affecting people with our second hand.

Whatever our sadness, our worries, our fears, our loneliness, our spirit of rejection, our performance, our OCD perfectionism, we are going to influence the people around us.

Whether we like it or not, whether we're trying to or not.

You're an influencer.

Yeah, that's right.

Nowadays.

You are.

You're an influencer whether you like it or not.

And so we want to.

We want love to propel us.

We want love to propel us to have the love list where we're doing our Bible worship, prayer, and community.

And that love list is all about loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

It's very loving to myself to read my Bible, worship and pray, but it's also very loving to you because it makes me better.

And it's also very loving.

And God doesn't need us to read our Bible, worship and pray.

God does not need us to do that.

He only wants that because we want a relationship with us.

Right.

So it's a love list.

And so I hope I can just propel everyone and compel you to do things out of love, be compelled out of a place of love.

No more fear.

Fear has compelled us to do so many things and not do so many things.

There isn't a time for a place for love to compel us.

Absolutely.

I so agree with you.

I mean.

I mean, it comes down, right, to love and hope, because you have to have hope to write hope of.

Like, while we don't want to be worried about the future so much, we have to have that hope that, like you said, that.

That there is beautiful and great things in this moment, but also all around us, there is opportunities for us to be that extension of love.

There's opportunities, Right.

So all of that is very hopeful, right, that we can experience joy, all these things.

And because I think some people, right, they get.

They get.

They feel hopeless, which is sometimes when these things take hold or you feel, like you said, out of control, like you can't control which.

We're not in control anyways, so you.

Know what I mean.

I do know what you mean.

We still want to be in control, though.

I know we do.

It's.

Yeah, it's our human nature to some extent, but.

But, yeah.

Okay, great.

So tell us, Heather, how can people learn more about your podcast and your books and all the other things and how.

How people can learn about working with you?

Yeah.

So you're listening to a podcast now, which.

Don't we love this one, I would just say just pause for just a minute and hop over and do a little search for Heal with God.

That's the name of my show.

You can come and binge hours of free teaching over there on Healing with God by hearing God's voice.

And then every third Monday of the month I do a live prophetic healing workshop.

It's free.

Free.

And you can join that at any time for the next one@heatherobrian.net workshop.

That's Heather O B R I E N.net workshop and in there I just teach you how to hear God's voice to get to the root of the issue.

That's what we're talking about today, how to do that.

And it's just a little three step method prayer.

And I'm going to teach you how to do that, live in person and you can even sign up for the free coaching in that if you want to or you just can come observe if you would like to also.

I'd love to to see you there.

I love it.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for coming and joining us today and just sharing with us a little bit of a deeper look into how we can use, you know, these daily tools or steps and then also dig deeper into, like you said, like what has a hold on us or what are we struggling with and how can we break free from that.

So thank you so much and it was some really great ideas and tips.

Appreciate it.

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