Dear Friends,
This teaching needs to be read after you have read
Examples of Judgments. Otherwise, it will not make sense.
Examples of Inner Vows
Inner vows are about keeping safe. They are a false and
dangerous kind of protection, made in response to bitter root
judgments. Inner vows can take some pretty weird turns. The
frightened and angry heart of a child can come up with some odd ways
of protecting itself. So when looking for vows, you will need to ask
the Lord to help you think outside of the box. Here’s a question I
have found helpful when searching for vows. After I have located a
judgment and remembered the pain, I say this: “OK. That really
hurts. How did I make it stop hurting?” The answer is my inner vow.
I. The First Inner Vow
Often the very first inner vow we make is to “Never Feel The
Pain Again or to Never Go There Again.” So when you begin your
search, I recommend that you do this: “Lord, I break the inner vow I
took to Never Feel The Pain Again. I also break any other vow I took
that keeps me from knowing what I need to know in order to heal. I
send all evil spirits to the feet of Jesus for judgment.”
If the thought of doing this scares you, then you probably
have that vow in place. Remember to pay attention to what you feel.
In most cases, this will deactivate the vow, remove any evil
beings attached to the vow and make it possible for you to go to the
root of the problem. The problem will be something you experienced
or believed that was painful or frightening.
Now, for those of you who have DID or SRA with amnesia, the
Lord knows if you are ready to go through this process. If you are
not ready, then ask Him to get you ready.
I have found working with severely wounded people that the
Lord tends to have us work on judgments and vows by tracking the
presenting behavior, not the memory. In another words, if the
presenting behavior is self-rejection, we will repent of all
possible judgments against the self. Then we break all the vows we
can think of, sending any evil spirits attached to the vows to the
feet of Jesus. It feels a little like flying by radar, but severely
wounded people usually are unable to bear the pain of working with
memories. It takes time to build that capacity. So while you are
building your own or another person’s capacity to bear pain, you
might as well get the legal work done.
II. Subsequent Inner Vows
In
Part 4: Examples of
Judgments, I listed five examples of bitter roots judgments.
These are from the lives of real folks. Here they are again with the
resultant inner vows.
Example One. A baby girl is born severely allergic to many
foods. It takes months of trying different formulas before one is
found that does not produce burning diarrhea and vomiting. The only
comfort this baby is able to enjoy is being held by her parents.
Otherwise, she cries. Over time, her exhausted parents begin to
leave her to cry ... alone ... in unrelenting pain and hunger. Her
sensitive spirit tunes into their frustration and anger. Her heart
soaks up the emotions in the atmosphere.
The allergic baby formed the belief that she is just too
much trouble. Her bitter root: Everyone would be better off without
me.
Inner Vow: I’ll do everyone a favor and go away.
Such an inner vow positioned this person to dissociate, which
she did since she could not actually go away in the natural realm.
Later abuse resulted in complex DID, but this vow had already made
it easy for her to “go away” by dissociating and dividing. It also
makes it difficult for her to stay present when we do the work of
prayer ministry. Renouncing this vow and sending the evil “helpers”
to Jesus was the key that allowed other related bitter roots to
surface.
Here’s a related bitter root and vow: “It is inevitable that
the ones I love will leave me.” (This includes God.) Now, pay
attention to the inner vow she made in response.
Inner Vow: Since this is inevitable, I will go ahead and make it
happen.
Just imagine how difficult such a vow makes it for people to
love her and stick by her. AND the enemy was hugely empowered to
beat me up as he “helped” her fulfill her vow to make her loved one
(me, in this case) abandon her before I ... uh ... abandoned her.
It has to do with pain management. If she made it happen,
then she could lie to herself about it. Lies such as, “I wanted her
to leave anyway. I never liked her. I’m glad she’s gone.” That sort
of thing.
She repented of protecting herself with the inner vow. I
broke the vow by saying, “I break the promise you made to make your
loved ones go away before they went away. I give the broken pieces
to Jesus and send all evil “helpers” to His feet.”
She then repented of judging EVERYONE, including God, by
believing that we would ALL leave her.
(The order of this prayer process is not important, by the
way.)
Since then, the enemy hasn’t been hanging around me, trying
to convince me to “abandon” her. What a relief. She still needs to
learn healthier social skills and new ways of thinking, but now that
the junk is removed, she CAN learn.
Apply this to your loved ones. Any of them making it impossible
for you to love them? Do you make it impossible for them to love
you? Hmmmm?
Example Two. A little boy is left in the care of his teenage
brothers while Dad works and Mom goes to school. The big brothers
are annoyed by his tagging along. One of them punches and kicks the
child. The other takes him into the woods and leaves him. They just
want to get rid of their pesky little brother. Oh. Did I mention
that the little boy was his parents’ last chance for a girl?
The pesky little brother already “felt” something was wrong with
him because of his parents’ deep desire for a girl. The abandonment
he felt when his parents left him in the care of his older brothers
reinforced his sense that he was not wanted. His bitter root:
Everyone wants to get rid of me.
Inner Vow: Since you don’t want me, I’ll be what you don’t want.
This inner vow is very similar to Example One, but it played out
a little differently. He would pick fights, say unforgivable things
that would destroy relationships. This, in a weird way, eliminated
the risk of being rejected and abandoned. Any relationship that grew
beyond the superficial “felt” dangerous, so he destroyed it before
it could hurt him more than he was already hurt.
The woman in Example One manifested emotional neediness,
eventually exhausting the people in her relationships. The young man
in Example Two, partnered with anger to destroy relationships. But,
all in all, the outcome is the same. Since the worse thing is going
to happen, I’ll go ahead and make it happen. Get it over with, then
I can relax.
Under all inner vows lurks miserable hopeless despair. The child
KNOWS (believes in her heart) beyond any doubt that the bad thing
WILL happen. It is inevitable. In both of these cases, the child
decided to seize a little control (both environments were chaotic)
and ease the pain by getting the bad thing over with as quickly as
possible.
The inner vow will fail to keep the child safe, but she MUST
try to protect herself from the pain that cannot be escaped. She
must try to keep herself safe. Do you see how hopeless this is? Now,
all of this is coming out of a child’s heart. What the heart
believes IS OUR REALITY. (Forgive the yelling. Just want ya’ll to
see that it does not matter what the rational truth is. What the
heart believes is reality to that person.) See the teaching,
The Heart.
Example Three. An 8-year-old girl shops with her mother. She
is looking for the perfect shoes. The child becomes so caught up in
all the choices and wanting to find exactly the right shoes that she
prolongs the shopping trip beyond her mother’s patience. Her mother
loses her temper and rages at the child who did not know she was
doing anything wrong.
This little girl was loved and wanted, but once before her
mother had overreacted badly when her daughter had committed an
innocent and childish mistake. At that time, the child had purposed
in her heart to be a “good” little girl so her mommy would love her.
But the shopping incident proved enough to shake the foundations of
her being. She believed she should have known better, when it was
impossible for her to have known at all. Her bitter root: I’m slow
and stupid.
Inner Vow: I’m not loved if I’m slow and stupid, so I won’t be.
What is at stake here for this child? She believes that she will
lose her mother’s approval and love if she takes too long or doesn’t
know what to do. Since this child believes in her heart that she IS
slow and stupid, here comes hopeless despair. And here come evil
“helpers” who torment her whenever she does something that is not
perfect or whenever she needs some time to make up her mind. They
are “helping” her keep her promise to herself. Since evil beings
cannot give life, they help us punish ourselves for failing to keep
our vows.
We prayed like this: “Lord, forgive me for judging myself. You
made me and I have no right to judge what You made. I break the
promise I made to myself to not be slow and stupid. I send all evil
“helpers” to the feet of Jesus. Lord, bring to death my old habits
of thinking that I have to be perfect to be loved and accepted.
Please teach me new ways of thinking.”
Big breakthrough for this person who has been dishonored often.
She stood up for herself the next time she was treated dishonorably.
Example Four. While in the womb a baby boy discerns that his
mother is depressed and uninterested in being pregnant again. He
doesn’t understand why mother isn’t excited about him. He wonders
what is wrong with him.
This mother was simply not ready to be pregnant again. But her
disinterest felt like rejection to this baby. He must not be very
important if his own mother isn’t excited about him. His bitter
root: I’m boring and unimportant.
Inner Vow: I’ll make her happy by being exciting.
(A little parental inversion there in that he made himself
responsible for his mother’s happiness. Of course, all parental
inversion is about keeping ourselves safe, so this translates into
“if my mother is happy, she’ll love me and I’ll be safe.”) This was
one exhausted man. He was striving mightily to make his wife happy
by being an exciting person, but she remained unmoved by all his
efforts. She just wanted to relax. Her lack of interest in hiking
the Appalachian Trail at the age of 50 translated to him that he was
boring and not wanted.
Example Five. The doctor warns this expectant mother not to
bond with baby until after the first trimester is successfully
completed. You see, she had miscarried her last baby during the
first trimester. The mother obediently follows doctor’s orders. When
baby reaches out to her mother to bond, the mother rejects the bond.
After the first trimester has passed, the mother reaches out to baby
and baby rejects mother.
Believing herself spurned by her mother, baby protects herself
from further hurt by rejecting mother. Her bitter root: I’m not
wanted.
Inner Vow: I won’t want her or need her or ever trust her again.
This is me, guys, so I’ll just say that I never bonded with
my poor mother. I didn’t want to risk letting her close enough to
hurt me again. So instead I resented her and believed that she hated
me when she didn’t. I was keeping myself safe from the pain of
rejection by rejecting back. The evil “helpers” helped by putting a
negative spin on anything that she said or did. I couldn’t listen to
her advice or accept her help. As you can imagine, this resulted in
me trying to mother myself. What a disaster.
III. Clean Up
Remember that inner vows are about protection. So when a
bitter root judgment comes to light, ask yourself this: If I
believed that, then how am I going to protect myself from the pain
of what I believe?
For example, when I was a youngster, I played touch football
with my big brother and his friends. I loved it. The boys loved me
because I was quick and little and I could catch the ball. This was
the joy of my life. One day a bigger boy showed up, new to the
neighborhood, and informed us that he didn’t play with girls. I
argued. The other boys argued, but this kid was a bully and bigger
than all of us. Finally, to drive home his point, he body-slammed
me. Forced to surrender the field, I limped home, deeply humiliated
and devastated, while my friends began to play with the new boy.
My judgment? I can never play with the big boys ever again. My
vow? Hate them!!!!
Here’s how it has played out. I would sabotage any relationship
with someone my heart viewed as a “big boy.” This might be a boss or
a pastor or a minister that I looked up to. When they “hurt” me, my
heart would savagely reject and hate them.
Like a good Christian, I did my best to suppress all this, but
God managed to drag it into the light anyway. I am happy to report
that I am healed and free from this judgment and vow.
So inner vows are about keeping yourself safe. How are you
keeping yourself safe?
The Steps To Break Vows
1. We break inner vows by saying, “I break the vow I made to
protect myself.”
You’ll have to fill in the specific vow. I don’t worry about
doing it right. I figure it doesn’t hurt to break a vow I didn’t
take or repent for a judgment I didn’t make. God knows that we see
in part. I believe in sweeping with a big broom. Just clean up an
area until you get a release from the Lord. Bitter root judgments
tend to be in clusters, so you may work in one area for a long time
before getting it all. It’s a process.
2. I give the pieces of the broken vow to Jesus by saying,
“I give the pieces of this broken vow to You, Lord.”
3. Send all evil “helpers” to the feet of Jesus. I say
something like this: “I send all evil “helpers” to the feet of
Jesus. I renounce your help. I ask You, Lord, to help me.”
4. Ask the Lord to bring your bad thinking and behaving
habits to death. Ask Him to build new healthy and holy ways into
you. This is very, very important. After you are set free, you must
learn to BE free. That will take some time. Remember that you do not
walk alone. Our good Jesus walks with you and He will teach you. I
suggest you read John Sandford’s The
Renewal of the Mind.
Let’s pray:
Heavenly Creator God, I ask that You would
strengthen us as we do the work of discovering our hearts. Please
bring our judgments and vows into the light. Please guide us as we
repent and break the promises we made to keep ourselves safe. You
alone are our safe place. Make it safe for us to do this work. In
Jesus’ name. Amen.
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