It has been my observation that many
Christians who are Americans suffer from a spirit of unbelief. I
believe that this is a cultural phenomenon. I am not limiting
the operation of this spirit to the American culture by any
means, but being American with limited exposure to other
cultures, I am going to explain why I think we, as a culture,
are so attacked by this spirit.
The Santa Claus Mentality
In
our culture we are taught, either directly or indirectly, that
there is one God who can do anything He wants, who will give you
what you want if you ask Him. Even those of us who were not
raised in Christian homes still absorb this perception of God.
It is part of our communities and our culture. Unfortunately,
that pretty much completes our education about God except for
the bit about we have to be good or He won’t like us. How does
this information translate to a child in distress or to a child
who really really wants something?
She
asks God to make Mommy and Daddy stop fighting. He asks God to
make Daddy stop drinking, to keep Grandma from dying, to make
Mommy and Daddy get back together... You get my drift. The child
wants a pony more than anything else in the whole world. She
prays for a pony every Christmas. And every Christmas ... no
pony.
What
does a child believe when faced with such deep disappointment?
God is Not to be
Trusted
As
Proverbs 13:12 warns us, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
Children do not understand why God would ignore their requests.
All they know is that He is supposed to answer prayers by giving
them what they ask for. That’s what they have been taught. So it
is very painful when a child’s heartfelt desire appears to be of
no consequence to God. The child must then come up with a way to
protect himself from feeling that terrible pain ever again. In
his heart he decides that God is not to trusted. He might think,
“I won’t ever believe in You again.” If he doesn’t believe, he
can’t be hurt. Right?
Empowered Unbelief
The
child grows up and learns more about the Lord. He gets good,
solid, correct information about faith and trust. This is good,
but it does not address the pain lodged in the heart. It does
not extract the promise that little child made to “never believe
in God ever again, because He doesn’t care about me or what I
want. He doesn’t hear my prayers. He’s not to be trusted.”
It
is at this point that most Christians become aware that they
struggle to believe God. Especially if they are asking Him for
something that is very important to them. They might glide by
the small stuff, but let a serious concern take center stage and
all of a sudden every time you pray you discern (feel) that you
just don’t believe. Does anybody witness with that?
What
you are discerning is a spirit of unbelief that is attached to
the childish promise you made to yourself. Remember?
“I
will never trust God again. I won’t believe He wants to help me,
then I can’t be hurt like this again.”
The
spirit of unbelief is “helping” you never trust or believe God
again.
Relief from Unbelief
This
spirit has proven to be easy to get rid of. Simply acknowledge
that you were hurt when your childish prayers were not answered
the way you thought they should be. Ask the Lord to forgive you
for judging Him as mean, bad, uncaring, untrustworthy, not real
... whatever feels like a good fit for you. Then break the
promise you made to protect yourself from pain by not believing
that He wants to help you.
Say
this: I break the promise (vow) I made to not believe in You, to
not trust You, to not believe that You hear my prayers or care
about what I want. I send all evil “helpers” who have been
helping me keep my promise, especially the spirit of unbelief,
to the feet of Jesus for judgment.
Good Results
I prayed this way a few years ago and led my
Poolers in this prayer shortly afterwards. The results have been
good. We bump into other problems, but that shifting, sliding
presence of a spirit of unbelief is not among them. |
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