RTF 2: Ungodly Beliefs

If I were to make a definition of what an emotional wound actually is, then I would say it is an incorrect belief about ourselves, other people and about God. To be more precise, this is what perpetuates the wound rather than the wound itself, but the two are tied very closely together.

Our belief system very strongly influences the way we behave and react in situations. For example, if I think I’m socially inferior and don’t have a right to my own opinion, then I’ll go around apologising for everything I do, even if it’s right.

Shame can be defined as the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with me that cannot be fixed. This is highly destructive and, in extreme cases, it will ultimately lead to suicide. It certainly causes people to believe that they will be rejected or that, if people really knew them, they would be disliked. If thought about rationally, this is unlikely to be true in most case, as most people have that feeling in common and are longing to accept and be accepted. A children’s song has been written to celebrate the ridiculousness of this way of thinking. It starts: Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go and eat worms…

There is what is termed the belief-expectation cycle. Not only do our beliefs affect the way we behave, but the way we behave influences what happens, which in turn influences what we believe about the world around us. So our expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies which in turn reinforce our beliefs. But the cycle needs to be broken, and this is done by recognising when we are believing something that is ungodly, and then choosing to believe something that is godly instead.

One of the things that can be difficult in determining ungodly beliefs is the distinguishing between fact and truth, the truth being the way God views a situation. For example, if I were to say, “Whenever I go into a room full of people I don’t know, I can’t speak to anyone”, that may well be a fact: it may always be happening. But believing it will keep me this way. The truth is that God is building self-confidence into me such that talking to people I don’t know is becoming easier all the time. That’s worth believing, and will result in increasing self-confidence. Of course, there may be other roots behind the lack of self-confidence. There may be other ungodly beliefs, generational sin or hurts from the past which all need dealing with before I can gain the self-confidence I am looking for.

It is important when dealing with an ungodly belief to have a corresponding godly belief that is meaningful and effective, and doesn’t just contradict the ungodly belief in the negative. For example I might consider replacing “Spiders are horrible scary creepy crawlies and I have to keep away from them” with “Spiders are not horrible scary creepy crawlies and I don’t have to keep away from them”, but it would be better to say “All of the UK’s species of spider are safe, and they are easy to pick up and handle”.

When I deal with ungodly beliefs, I pray this prayer (or something very similar):

I confess my sin [(if appropriate) and my ancestor’s sin] of believing the lie that ……… . I forgive those who contributed to my forming this ungodly belief. In particular, I forgive ……… . I ask you, Lord, to forgive me for receiving this ungodly belief, for living my life based upon it and for any way I have judged others because of it. I receive your forgiveness. On the basis of your forgiveness, Lord, I choose to forgive myself for believing this lie. I renounce and break my agreement with this ungodly belief. I cancel my agreement with the powers of darkness. I break all agreements with demons. I choose to accept, believe and receive the godly belief that ……… .

With the changing of our beliefs being an active choice on our part, there is a need to actively retain our new beliefs, and not just revert to our own way of thinking. The standard prescription is to read the new godly beliefs out loud every morning for 40 days. Whilst this can be helpful and effective, there are a couple of things which are essential. Firstly, it is possible to go away from a prayer session with a set of beliefs which, deep down, we don’t really see how they can be true. When this happens, there is usually an underlying set of ungodly beliefs which have not been addressed. Until they are, repeating the new set just received will not have the desired effect. Also, it is possible to read out our new godly beliefs in the morning, only to have forgotten them by the time we shut the front door behind us. In practice, what happens is that our new beliefs are challenged by things that happen, and on each occasion we have the choice of thinking the way we always used to, or thinking in accordance with our new godly beliefs. The purpose of reading them out in the morning is so they are uppermost in our minds when the challenges come.