Jesus shows long-time Christian her rebellious ways

S knew church life more than she knew God personally. Being task-oriented, she took part in many activities in church in order to seek approval from people, until the Holy Spirit disciplined her and showed her the issues in her walk with God during an inner healing and deliverance prayer. God then lovingly forgave her for all her unconfessed sins after she repented. Praise God!

(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣显明一位资深基督徒的叛逆方式 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌顯明一位資深基督徒的叛逆方式)

I grew up in a hardworking family.

My parents operated a neighbourhood store for 20 years without any holidays. They are loving parents who strived to work hard to improve our livelihood, and it was a natural instinct for me to help out as a “child labour”. I finished my schoolwork quickly and spent most of the day working at the store. It was out of grief over my brother’s death in a car accident that they decided to close the store.

The only regret in my life is that I could not go abroad to study due to the family’s financial constraints. I did not blame my parents, but whenever my husband looks down on me because of my education, it brings back the discomfort and regret. So perhaps there is childhood pain that I had just swept under the carpet.

I have been a Christian for over 30 years and I have never been a frontline warrior; the evangelical type.

I “earned” my approval from my church as a pianist, a choir member, ministry leader and children Sunday school teacher. So, I felt I am “safe” as no one will ask me to do more. I am also eager to learn and attend numerous Christian workshops and Bible studies, so that I am in a close community of Christian friends.

I attended Bible Study Fellowship for a year but dropped out, as I found that I am not the academic type. After all, I believed what Jesus requires is childlike faith, so why did I have to study so much?  However, I realised from the Love The Lord course that if I do not study God’s Word, it’s much harder to hear from God and to fight against the enemy.

I had been disobedient and relying on my own strength.

In general, I do not feel the emptiness inside of me, because God is faithful and I feel loved by God. Even when I am depressed or stressed out, I look at nature and can quickly reposition myself and regain energy and be joyful. This is important to me, as I do not want others to look at Christians as losers and stumble.

According to Romans 8:37,  “In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” Therefore, we are super conquerors in Christ.

During my inner healing and deliverance prayer, I discovered many hidden issues that I didn’t go before God to ask for His forgiveness and repent for.

The Holy Spirit revealed that I was disobedient and all the time, He has been waiting for me to repent from all my wrongdoings.

God revealed that I am precious and He has been longing for me to reconcile with Him, but my heart had been hardened for too many years. I was scared when I experienced God’s discipline and anger towards me.

I am thankful that my prayer counsellor guided me through, to re-examine myself and wait on the Holy Spirit to reveal my hidden past; pride, control, lies, excuses, curses, forgetfulness, revenge and laziness in spending time with God. She then guided me along the way to tackle them, one by one, especially my relationship with my mother.

My mother’s partiality toward my brother’s family made me feel abandoned.  

The bitterness I felt has kept me from visiting her. I understand that the enemy has a foothold in me regarding this relationship. My prayer counsellor encouraged me to forgive her. It was not easy and I took some time to do so. The root of bitterness was very deep.

Also, during the inner healing and deliverance prayer, I am grateful for the cleansing power that all my past encounter with deities were swept clean. I repented of practising yoga and qigong, ancestral and the land god worship, visiting temples and partaking in fortune telling, zodiac reading and temple food festivals during the holidays.

I also learnt from the Love The Lord course that anything we cannot let go will become an idol over time.

In my own family, my husband behaves as the judge and my son behaves as a peacemaker. Because of my son’s good nature, I can always relate to him in a trusted manner. As a 16-year-old teenager, he would grab my hands to cross the road. My son told us he is a “solution-ner.”

I count many little blessings from my son and gradually, he became my idol. I relied on him for comfort and a listening ear.

After the inner healing and deliverance prayer, I realise I should not idolise my son any longer.

During an overseas trip and two-week quarantine – a total of five weeks of absence from my family – I found I did not miss either my husband or my son. I defaulted to prayers and let go, especially when I was tested during this trip.

In such a way, I felt a new kind of freedom in God. Big or small things, I could speak to Him. I discovered the indwelling Holy Spirit is always there to help me. I learnt to be still, wait and listen. It still does not come naturally, but I am a learner and now strive to reflect more at the end of the day.

Even at times when I feel miserable with my marriage because my husband has anger problems, I found I could go before God and find solace there. 

Through the inner healing and deliverance prayer, I realised I did not understand the issues in my marriage and have never addressed them.

I am a “doer” and my husband is not. That reflects my childhood when I worked hard to earn my parents’ praise. Because my husband often looks down on me, I strive to work harder in response, to make things work. I do not feel loved by my husband and hit rock bottom if things go wrong.

I told my husband that we have become a WhatsApp couple. He prefers messages in black and white as he has a hard time following through with the “tasks” of the day.

My prayer counsellor reminded me time and time again that my husband is the head of the household. In obedience to Christ, I need to submit to him. By being a doer, I had a tendency to run ahead of my husband. My husband also reinforces his right as the head of the household. After his inner healing and deliverance prayer, he kept mentioning that I am influenced by a Jezebel spirit and it feels like a spiritual attack.

Every time he says that, it is like an arrow shooting towards me. 

However, the pain of seeing him fail to learn lessons from past mistakes affects me deeply because his failure causes me to fall at the same time, as I often have to bear the consequences in the aftermath. I have to ask God for that extra “cushion” of time needed to relieve my baggage.

In our marriage, there are many thick walls between us like a maze. It is hard to reach common ground.

Talking to my husband is often like “parallel talk.” We just talk about our own stories without pondering each other’s heartfelt feelings.

The other day, my friend sent me a photo of a nurse wearing a mask that looks like a jigsaw puzzle. Every tiny piece is a small photo of a medical staff who died in the pandemic. I quickly recalled a 29-year-old young doctor in Wuhan who postponed his wedding just trying to work long hours to save lives, but he caught the virus and died. I couldn’t hold back my tears.

I asked my husband how he felt about the photo. He said, “propaganda.” I was speechless. To break down the walls and rekindle the empathy towards people takes time.

The enemy is getting more “real” in my eyes so I need to understand God’s Word and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me through.

The prayer counsellor is right. I am confronting the enemy daily, and the enemy is not my husband. Satan is the real enemy.

Moreover, I will try my best to approach my mother with a more loving heart. It’s a process. I pray for her everyday now and allow God to work on this thorny relationship.

God does not promise a rosy path for us as Christians. I count every obstacle as a learning opportunity for me to rely on God more. 

I cling onto His promises that He will sustain my family. His grace and mercy will grant us a victorious life till the end.

What a fresh new day to start with a song: Trust and Obey, there is no other way….