John Murphy 

This is the Rockhouse Center Podcast, and I'm John Murphy. 

Beth Murphy 

I'm Beth Murphy, and we're talking today about getting unstuck. At some point in life, most everyone has experienced the feeling of being stuck about some aspect of their lives. And certainly everybody we work with at Rock House as a counseling client is stuck somewhere in some way, something, somewhere they don't want to be. And the result of being stuck is that life just doesn't feel good and they want a way out, but they don't know how to get free. People think there's something they need to do to get free, which is true, but it's generally not what they're expecting. 

John Murphy 

Yeah, I think that's very true, that most of the people who come in are thinking about a counseling kind of experience where they're sort of given some wisdom and given some things to do, and they don't really understand where you really need to go to get unstuck. Because unstuck, true unstuck, is that I'm stuck in an emotional state, I'm stuck in a processing or thinking state, and I just can't break free of it. It's a fairly significant level of suffering. and it takes a particular kind of approach to deal with it. How we get stuck is interesting, and usually it's because that we are trying to fill something really deep inside of us through our own process, through our own strength, our own strategy. And what needs to happen is that we need to come off of that strategy and move towards looking at God to fill whatever it is that we're trying to get at to get peace. You really can't get out of being stuck the way we're talking about without going to God, because God's the only one that's really going to be able to fill that deep place inside of us. So the breakthroughs really come when we give up our strategy and our plan and move over to God's plan, which is for us to be full and whole and peaceful and assured in life as we are trusting Him. And of course, that's really His promise. That's the piece He's promising us. There's a piece that is relying on Him to be the answer to what we need. An important perspective in the whole idea of getting unstuck also is around the idea that folks commonly have an anticipation that when they're praying to God and asking for relief of how they feel about something, that God is going to change the circumstance. But it's not actually the way he works. Remember, he talks about walking through the valley of the shadow of death. He doesn't talk about taking the valley of the shadow of death away. He's trying to show you how you can be at peace in the midst of your suffering. And so he's going to work in the circumstance of the condition of your heart and how the situations feel versus changing the circumstances around it. And so when we're going to get unstuck stuck, we really need to look at heart issues, which are the things which are holding in this place of how life feels. 

Beth Murphy 

Certainly a headline of God's life-changing plans for all of us is for His people to live in grace and forgiveness. Over the years, you know, we're into our 15th year now, and if we were to think of a single most significant thing that causes being stuck in life, it would be living in the place of unforgiveness. And scripture is clear that unforgiveness is a tormenting experience that results in negative emotions of all kinds. Certainly anger, bitterness, severe depression. They all have a negative impact on our physical health as well. In fact, when clients come to Rock House, one of the things they do in their paperwork is fill out a symptom checklist that has 36 data points on it, the emotions, behaviors, spiritual well-being, physical well-being, and every single one of those 36 is affected positively by forgiveness and negatively by unforgiveness. Scripture, of course, is clear that unforgiveness is a tormenting experience that results in all these different negative emotions. So if we're stuck in unforgiveness, it means that we are stuck in negative emotions and the promised consequences of the unforgiveness. And so then that begs the question of, Why is it that we can have a hard time getting free of unforgiveness? Why is it that so many clients pose the question, why can't I just forgive them and move on? Why can't I do that? When they become convicted that they need to, the question then becomes, why is it so difficult to do that? Well, The answer is always going to be because there's something riding on, hanging on to the unforgiveness. You could even call it a dependency. 

John Murphy 

Unforgiveness is one of the aspects of places where we get stuck. We're just using forgiveness because it's so clear and easy to see how it is that we can get caught up in unforgiveness and have a hard time breaking free of it. But we can also get stuck for other reasons. So overall, what we're saying is that the reason that we're stuck anywhere is because there's some deep heart issue hanging on it. might be believing a lie, or it might be deciding to control instead of trust. So there are a number of things, but it's so frequent that we have folks struggling with this one particular issue of forgiveness. It's just a really great example, and it is probably one of the most common things, not necessarily always at the centerpiece, but commonly is in the centerpiece of where people are still stuck in a situation that's causing them ongoing peace, and they can't really figure out how is it that I'm still stuck in this feeling towards this situation. That was the beginning of my own healing, which was dealing with the unforgiveness I had. So I was stuck for a whole long time, but then I was told I needed to forgive, but I was still stuck. Just being told I needed to forgive wasn't all I needed to hear and all I needed to resolve to be able to just move forward and get freedom from the unforgiveness. So I had a series of experiences in my past. I just called them the abusers of my past. It's kind of a bucket of all those things together. I had a very, very strong resistance inside of me, and as I started to think about what was at stake, in doing the forgiveness work, I began to see the heart issue that was underneath it. And one of them was that these people didn't deserve it. They've never done anything to deserve being forgiven. Well, underneath that was the sense that these people have never given me what I needed. They never valued me or cared for me or moved my direction or made an effort towards me. What I realized is that I had a tremendous amount riding on what I needed to get from them to be okay. And then when they stiff arm me and then on top of stiff arm were also difficult things and abusive things, then it just drove even deeper into me a sense of resentment towards them. So one of the things that made it hard for me to forgive was because they didn't give me what I needed. And some of the people in my bucket of people were folks that it would be reasonable to expect would give me some of the caring and concern and interest and value that I needed. Another aspect of the unforgiveness and why it was hard to go there was that I felt a sense of revenge towards them. I felt a sense of judgment. I would focus on what was wrong with these people and judge these people and compare myself to them. And I found myself actually feeling better about me as I focused on how, what horrible people they were and how they deserved judgment. And the more and more that I was doing that, I was actually getting a level of worth and that I'm better than you are kind of feeling out of it. And if I forgave them, And then that was another thing that I would have to release. And that was something that was really important to me. I also thought that they ought to ask for forgiveness first. They never asked for forgiveness. So why should I forgive them? Well, what did I want out of that? I wanted respect. I wanted someone to validate my judgment. Again, those were deep heart issues that I was using unforgiveness to really hang on to control around those things. Another one that I discovered later on, just years later, as I thought about that whole experience, I also discovered that I had focused on them as the people in my bucket, as being responsible for the way I feel and the way my life felt. When I looked at myself and the pain that I was in, another aspect of unforgiveness, which really made it very sticky for me, was that I realized that if I forgave them, then I couldn't blame them anymore for how my life felt, and I had to own it. Well, when you're really in a hard place and you have low self-worth and you're not looking for more revelation of what's wrong with you, it's very hard to go through an exercise of understanding that those people need to be forgiven for whatever it is they did and that I can't blame them and actually never really could blame them for how my life felt because I am responsible for how my life felt. When I was in this place of unforgiveness, it was very easy for me to dump all of that responsibility on them instead of taking responsibility on myself for dealing with the way my life was going. 

Beth Murphy 

A really prevalent lie. that people believe is that unforgiveness protects me, keeps me safe from this person, keeps me from being vulnerable, keeps me from being a doormat. That's prevalent, and it is absolutely a lie straight from the pit of hell, because the truth is that unforgiveness does not provide any kind of protection. It keeps us in *******. It actually keeps us in a place of partnering with the voice of the accuser himself over them, and ultimately over ourselves as well. And that's just like putting yourself in prison and locking the door. It's just ensuring misery. And the truth is that God is the one who's going to protect me. He's the one through His Holy Spirit living in me and trusting Him. That's what's going to lead me in knowing how to relate to this person. Forgiving them doesn't mean that I necessarily have to relate to them. If they've broken in my house and harmed my family and gone to prison, I don't have to invite them over for dinner and be friends with them. That's not what forgiveness is about. Forgiveness is an issue in my heart between me and God and a decision that I want to honor God. I'm not making myself available to be taken advantage of. I'm not doing anything that puts myself at risk. This is just a decision to forgive. It's just a decision between me and God. 

John Murphy 

Along with that is the whole anger piece that comes with that a lot of times and the false belief that my anger is going to strengthen me to resist them. So just adding to that perspective. 

Beth Murphy 

Yeah, and wow, that's another one that's totally a trap of the accuser to get us to believe that because our anger itself weakens us, makes us vulnerable, makes us make terrible decisions. It just opens us up to the strategy of the enemy and is actually accomplishing the opposite of what that lie would promise. 

John Murphy 

Yeah, and so if I'm looking to anger as a way to protect myself, then I'm really, this is another issue, is that I'm in a deal with the devil, so to speak. I have an alliance with hell, that I'm looking for anger, which is a from hell experience, a from hell emotion, to protect me. 

Beth Murphy 

Another associated lie is that if I forgive them, it would somehow condone their behavior. or minimize their behavior, or say that what they've done is okay. Of course, forgiveness doesn't do that at all. The more heinous the thing, the more our need to forgive without in any way condoning it. I mean, Jesus forgave from the cross. He's not saying it was okay that they chose to torture Him and crucify Him. He is just knowing that He's passing on what God has passed on. He's honoring His Father and asking God to forgive them and bless Him for eternity. And so it doesn't it doesn't do that thing, and our desire to not want them to be blessed spills over into that same thing. I want to judge them. I want to take on what God has said is His territory. You know, justice is His deal. I don't have any responsibility in invoking justice or punishment for people. And the truth is, I don't want to receive what I deserve, and we don't want to be passing on to anybody else what they deserve. We just want to honor God. In doing so, choose to do what He has asked us to do. Receive all forgiveness from Him and pass that on to others. So then that gets into kind of a related lie about, maybe they would sort of get away with it. I don't want them to be blessed in their bad behavior. So, the family member who embezzled money from our family's company in it, and it caused all kinds of grief and anguish, and ultimately my parents had to, they had to declare bankruptcy. Their spillover effect affected several generations. Okay, so forgive Forgiving the person who embezzled the money doesn't mean we're saying, oh, that's okay. That was not a big deal. And I want them to use all that money and have a fabulously indulgent life. That's not what forgiveness is. Unforgiveness isn't what prevents them from doing that. We are talking about, again, honoring God through forgiveness and seeking spiritual blessings for them. We can be assured that they have built-in consequences to their choices and decisions and behaviors in life. We don't have to create our own consequences and invoke them somehow. That's not our place to do, and honestly, it's really not necessary. 

John Murphy 

So all of these things are around the brilliant rationalizations we have to not forgive. Things that justify us to withhold. But that leaves our heart in a condition of having absolutely no desire to honor God in this situation and bring forth forgiveness. So we have all these brilliant rationalizations based on getting the divine needs met, but it leaves us with a heart condition on top of all of the justifications to hang on to the things we need with this resistance and the zero desire to honor God around this situation. That's 2 significant elements that keep us stuck in that place of unforgiveness. If we're going to get unstuck, then there are two basic things we've got to look at. One of them is dealing with the dependencies we have on this position of unforgiveness towards an individual or group of individuals. And that dependency is doing something for us. It's meaning something deep in us. It's a way in which we're getting something satisfied or protecting something within us. And then the other side is dealing with the general resistance I have to move forward in forgiveness, which is a desire of God's. So the two key things we have to get into are one, I got to deal with my dependency on somebody else to fill something that really only God can fill and to forgive them and deal with my resentment towards them that they can't really fill something that I need to have filled. And the wrong expectation and the wrong conclusion that I have that they ever even could fill it. So I want to remove all that dependency to fill the deep things like worth assurance and peace in my heart. And the other thing is that I have to deal with my desire. I have to understand that I'm gonna have to get through this and I need desire. And my personal experience was that it wasn't until I had finally come to the conclusion after all of the brilliant rationalizations to not forgive, the thing that really pushed me over the top so that I would do the forgiveness work was that I just realized that God deserved it. This really was between me and God. It really actually wasn't between me and all those people. The condition of my heart and this decision to withhold forgiveness was primarily about my relationship with my Lord. Am I going to honor Him and do what He wants me to do? He offered us grace and forgiveness with absolutely no requirements, and He asked us to pass that on with no requirements. That's part of our relationship with the Lord. That's an expectation. It wasn't until it really hit me that this is not about me. It isn't all just about how I feel about forgiveness, that an important aspect of being able to break free was to embrace and gauge the reality that God deserved it, that I love God, and I wanted Him to be honored in this. And what I found is that the thing that pushed me just over the line, just enough to be able to have the willingness to pray, and it wasn't a deeply rich, grace-filled forgiveness sort of spirit. It was just simply, I'm honoring God. I'm going to be obedient. I'm going to do what He calls me to do, and I really want to honor Him. Sometimes we have to say forgiveness things we don't necessarily feel it deep down inside of who we are, but what was really driving this was, that's what God wants, and I'm going to be obedient. And I really did feel a hunger to be obedient to Him. And that's really what pushed it over the edge. 

Beth Murphy 

All right, so we're moving here into a tremendously important prayer opportunity with Four key things to take a look at and to ask yourself. In this place where you may be struggling to forgive someone and move on, you're asking yourself, what's wrong with me? Why am I stuck here? And so you can ask, what am I depending on them for? And then take a look at as you realize what it is you are hoping they're going to do for you. Then what you want to do is move that dependency off of them and on to God. The step that we take is forgive the offender and, in the prayer, ask God to prosper them spiritually. That doesn't mean prosper them in their wrongdoing or endorse their wrongdoing, but we're praying spiritual abundance over these people and that they would be... healed of whatever went on in their heart to cause them to do the things that they did. So you're asking for God's heart for them, basically. 

John Murphy 

And all of that honors God. So to the degree that you feel the desire to bless God and honor God, this is a huge expression of that, of your honoring of who He is. As we have seen and talked about before, the ways in which we honor and are obedient to God, He receives those things as love. So this is an important part of our relationship with the Lord to honor Him in this activity of doing the forgiveness He's called us to do. So the first thing we want to do is ask God to show you who it is and what it is that we want to become free from this person for. What have I become dependent on him for? What was the offense? How did it make me feel? We want to pray and ask God to show you that person and reveal that whole experience to you right now so then you can fill in the blanks of this prayer as we go forward and begin to get some freedom. I want to tell you, cannot underestimate what it is that this prayer will do for you. If you will honestly engage this in a desire to honor God in your life, even if it's for that reason only, I can tell you it released from me 10s of years of depression came off of me because of this one prayer. I was absolutely stuck. Now your experience may be a different emotion than I had. I had the emotion of depression. Yours might be the motion of rage. It might be the motion of anxiety. It might be fear, whatever it is. If you've got anything riding on this individual that we're about to forgive, you can expect God to show up and be trustworthy and to feel this begin to lift off of you in the days, weeks, and months ahead just from this one prayer. And I know that because that's exactly what happened to me. And I want to remind you that I was very mercenary in this prayer. It wasn't a grace-filled, aw poor baby kind of prayer. It was just, this is what God has called me to do and I just wanted to honor Him. So first we're going to ask for God to show you who and what. So Heavenly Father, I just ask you right now to reveal to whoever is listening who it is that they most need to forgive, who will get them the most unstuck in life, who will give them the most freedom. Show them what it is they did and what that dependency has been, that wrong dependency on them that has been in place versus you. I just pray that you would show that to them right now, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, it's the first one. Remember, it's always the first one when you pray. It's not the one that we process and rationalize skipping down to the second one, because usually the first one that comes to mind is really where some significant work and freedom can come from. So I just encourage you to take that first person and that first thought, that first thought of dependency that person represents to you, and let's put that in the prayer and get you some freedom. So let's pray now. Repeat after me. Heavenly Father, I forgive. Put the person's name in there. I forgive them for, put the offense in there, and for how it made me feel. Father, I reject any dependency I have had or expectation I have had on him or her to fill my deepest needs that only you can fill. Please remove them from the divine place in my heart that belongs to You. And I invite You to replace them with Your presence, Your peace, and Your love. Father, please bless this person, put in the fill in the blank, with the certainty of Your love and trustworthiness, so they can heal of any suffering that they may be experiencing in their life. Father, please remind me of this forgiveness and fill my heart with your love for them. I pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen. 

Beth Murphy 

Amen. Thank you for joining us today. We encourage you to send this podcast, anyone else you think that may be blessed, and to contact us if you feel like you want to know more about what we do at Rock House Center or could help you in any way. You can find us at rockhousecenter.com and give us a call or e-mail us through the website. 

John Murphy 

We hope this prayer has really helped you today, but if you're still having trouble getting unstuck, please don't hesitate to give us a call. We certainly would like to be helpful. Thanks for joining us today. Goodbye.