by Chris Boersma Smith | Nov 8, 2017 | 5 Gospel Keys, Individual Prayer Ministry, Maintaining Your Freedom, Mindset, Unbound
Perhaps over the holidays you’ll be around family members who regularly behave in ways that annoy you. Maybe you’ll see people who mistreated you. You don’t want to fall into an old sinkhole and not know how to climb back to the freedom in Christ you’ve found this year!
My family of origin, circa 1968: six people I love and hope to gather with this Thanksgiving!
If you’ve been through UNBOUND prayer, you’ve declared people and their actions forgiven in Jesus’ name. You’ve renounced the patterns you responded with that were influenced by unclean spirits. Unclean spirits, unhealthy habits, harmful words that you once took to heart, and lies you used to believe—these were commanded out of you with authority in Jesus’ name. You gave thanks, were blessed, and had new truths proclaimed to reinforce your identity in Christ and as a child of the Father. Hopefully, you left feeling loved and much freer and closer to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
IF THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE TO EXPERIENCE,
CLICK HERE TO REQUEST AN INDIVIDUAL UNBOUND PRAYER SESSION
I’ve just returned from over three weeks in Florida with my parents and sister during a medical crisis. During that stressful time, I backslid into a spiritually unhealthy pattern, so I have some thoughts to share with you!
I’m an UNBOUND prayer leader, and I’ve been set free in Christ in increments. The first time came through deliverance prayer before I learned of Unbound. It healed my relationship with a daughter and loosened my perfectionism and need for other people’s approval. Later I was set free through an Unbound session, after forgiving very deep hurts I’d buried for a decade. Then at a Freedom in Christ Conference, I profoundly experienced the heart of the Father.
During those weeks in Florida I was grateful to be able to help. I enjoyed seeing loved ones, watching baseball with my Dad like I did as a kid, praying with both parents, faith-sharing with my Mom, and all that. However, I saw myself falling into old snares, including:
- extreme attempts at people-pleasing, approval-seeking, and criticism-avoidance;
- fear of reprimands and of not being good enough, and repeating the lie that “I can’t do anything right;”
- judgmentalism (received and rendered);
- taking refusals of my offers of help as rejection;
- being under the illusion that I had some control;
- self-accusation, self-criticism, self-justification, and self-absorption; and
- not living in the present but buying into guilt, regrets, worry, fear, obsessive thinking, and insomnia.
My usual Quiet Time was eroded, I got no real exercise, and only briefly did I pray with a 5 Keys Prayer Card like the ones we give out after UNBOUND sessions. I was very aware of my sinfulness, yet I knew the struggle could also help others if I grew from it and shared it honestly.
Here are the 7 steps that got me out of the sinkhole:
- Journaling: I wrote about my thoughts and feelings, what triggered me, what I didn’t like, and what worried me. I concluded that my responses were a sign to me that my freedom is fragile and needs T.L.C. I also put myself in other people’s shoes and wrote how I thought they were feeling during the tough time we shared, since everyone was dealing with shock and stress.
- Spiritual Reading: Once home, I caught up on daily readings I’d missed, liturgical and devotional. Jesus Always (by Sarah Young) reminded me not to attach my sense of worth to my performance. What others think of me is really none of my business, because only God sees us as we truly are—far from perfect but radiantly clothed in God’s perfect righteousness. In addition, because we’re precious to the Lord who delights in us, we should refuse to condemn ourselves. When you’re dissatisfied with something you’ve said or done, this book says, talk to Jesus and ask him to sort out what is truly sinful and needs to be confessed. Also, since pride is a deadly sin, it suggests that being humbled is a blessing.
- Conversational Prayer: Repentance and statements of faith, in my own words, were followed by asking for help taking my thoughts captive to Christ and increasing my desire and discipline for more time in God’s Presence. Listening, I heard (once again) that Jesus delights in setting us free, and the Holy Spirit helped me list everything I needed to confess and renounce.
- 5 Keys Prayer: Having completed Key #1 (repentance and faith), I worked my way through out-loud declarations of forgiveness of everyone and everything I’d journalled or identified (Key #2), including self-forgiveness (the hardest part for me). I then renounced out loud all the unclean spirits and lies on the list from my Conversational Prayer time (Key #3). I commanded them out in the name of Jesus (Key #4). And I prayed a Father’s Blessing (Key #5) and my daily novena to the Holy Spirit. At this point, I again felt free, thanks be to God, but I had more to do to.
- Additional Reading and Reflection on Relationships: I read and took notes from a booklet I got on a retreat, Elf-help for Dealing with Difficult People, by Lisa O. Englehardt, illustrated by R W. Alley. This gave me some practical ideas, along with The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbinger Institute—a fabulous book on how to improve all your relationships by honoring your own sense of what’s right and seeing others as persons like yourself, with needs, wants, and feelings, rather than as “objects.” After all this, I focused on how to make better choices “next time” to get out of mindsets that are not loving others as myself. I grew in compassion and identified how I contributed to upsetting situations. I resolved to be more understanding, loving, and honoring next time, so as to have a heart at peace and a clearer conscience.
- Sacraments: I made an appointment and received Reconciliation and went to a nice, quiet daily Mass.
- Gratitude: I thanked God for the circumstances that diminished my pride, for we are to give thanks always and for everything. I thanked God that my imperfect performance reminds me that I’m a wounded catalyst for the Lord’s healing and deliverance. I thank the Mighty One who is so awesome that my failings won’t hamper God’s plans to set believers free. And I give thanks because as I was in the midst of that spiritual battle, I saw it for what it was and knew that Christ had already won the victory for us!
How might the 5 Keys Prayer Card or these steps help keep the THANKS and the MERRY in your holidays?
by Chris Boersma Smith | Jul 10, 2017 | Alignment with Values, Empowering and Freeing Choices, Gratitude, Living Abundantly, Mindset
On this date last year, after a light dinner while watching the surfers, I composed an earlier version of this post on a poolside lounge chair as the sun went down in San José del Cabo, Mexico! A few seats away, my husband was on a 90-minute overseas call. This setting illustrated my belief: that I can combine enjoying my life with serving my mission. A year later, I am overflowing with gratitude about how much of what I was trusting God for in hope and faith has actually been unfolding with supernatural grace! So let me please share a process that’s worked for me as I journal, pray about, implement what comes to me in that Quiet Time, and then thank God as I see the outcomes.
All that’s standing between you and what you desire is belief. That the power of belief is key to the outcomes you experience is borne out by scripture and by the myriad stories of motivational speakers. Wise teachers contend that we mostly get what we believe although we may not realize exactly what our beliefs are. Proverbs 23:7 warns us that as you think in your heart, so shall you be. And Abraham Lincoln put it like this: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
After discerning God’s will and making sure what you want aligns with it, the first step in putting the power of belief to work is to identify what you want—but not necessarily in minute detail; the essence of your goal is best, leaving room for the Holy Spirit to surprise you. For example, to be healthy was probably the goal of the poor, untouchable, hemorrhaging women who believed about Jesus, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured” (Mark 5:28). Indeed, Jesus felt the power going out of him when she surreptitiously touched the hem of his garment; and he told her and the crowd that her faith was the basis of her healing. His words probably gave her respectability as well.
I recently read a 1998 book called So, Why Aren’t You Rich? The Prosperity Secret of the Rich by Darel Rutherford. It helped me see that my beliefs about hard work were not as positive as I’d imagined. Quite the opposite, as I realized after examining the Green Monster dream I discussed in “Honoring Your Dreams Through Creative Expression,” I believed that making money came at an exorbitant emotional cost. I started to do the work described below to change my mindset once I became aware of how that buried thought was holding me back. And now I can attest to this: Replacing a mindset of lack and hardship with a mindset of plenty and abundance is likely to beneficially spill over into many areas of life, including not just finances but also time and energy!
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A simple project can illustrate how to go through a 7-Step Manifestation Process I’m grateful to have learned from my friend, Ericka Jackson James.
I invited anyone with a postponed organizational project to join a client, friends, and me on July 12th, a day we set aside for tackling our individual organizational challenges “together across the miles,” making it fun, productive, and easy to be motivated by sharing virtually, as we’re each in our own places. (See my post, How to Join a Virtual Organize-for-Fun Day.)
Using that project as an example of the 7-Step Manifestation Process:
- Want. The first step is to decide what you WANT—for example, to make organizational progress. Ask yourself: “Who would I need to be in order to meet my goal?” For the organizing project, I believe being prepared, realistic, and in a mindset of abundance will help most. It would help to state this in an affirming “I Am” statement. For example, “I am grateful for the abundance of my blessings and I’m willing to care for my things and share.”
- Hope. The next step is HOPE, so engage in possibilities thinking.
- Desire. After hope comes DESIRE, focusing on the essence of what you long for, such as certain piles to be eliminated and, by the end of the day, knowing where the stuff formerly in the piles now “lives” (whether in your home or off to charity or recycling).
- Decide. With your want, hope, and desire clarified, you commit and determine the project to be done. To achieve success, I’ve urged setting a reasonable goal to achieve in the time participants have available that day. BELIEF is easier if the goals seem attainable from the outset. Alternatively, if you’re willing to trust God and stretch your faith, you might even select a goal that seems humanly impossible, while believing that nothing is impossible for God.
- Believe. We’ll ground the BELIEF by engaging our imaginations about how the newly organized area will look or work and how we’ll feel about accomplishing the task. Selecting inspiring music, breaks, and rewards can enhance our success and make it all more fun. That’s why I had a Scavenger Hunt for participants the day of the Virtual Organizing-for-Fun Day, so we could engage our childlike spirits and make this work more like play.
- Exercise Faith. Taking a “before” photo and planning to take an “after” photo as well, we combined belief + action into FAITH. At this point, try to embrace with 100% certainty that your goals will be fulfilled. As a person of spiritual faith, this step typically involves saying a prayer for persistence, guidance, wisdom, and blessing along the way.
- Embody. Following through in faith with action, good systems, and/or spiritual guidance will allow you to organize in chunks and also practice good self-care by taking healthy breaks and nourishing yourself. You’ll see visual progress along the way, a reward in itself. You’ll be DOING what the person you described in the Step 1 “I Am” statement does! As you execute your plan, you’ll be embodying the MANIFESTATION of your belief: the results become visible. Congratulations will be well deserved!
Yes, adversity and challenges happen. Sometimes one person’s belief conflicts with someone else’s. We have lessons to learn and the journey has its twists, ups, and downs. But living with wisdom and belief is a shorter journey to realizing our goals and aligning with our sacred callings than letting life just happen to us.
I encourage you to put the power of belief to the test. Also please feel free to comment below or email me about areas where you find it most challenging to believe in positive outcomes.
by Chris Boersma Smith | Jan 23, 2016 | 5 Gospel Keys, Freedom, Healing, Individual Prayer Ministry, Lies, Life Stories, Mindset, Overcoming Obstacles, Renunciation
Most women lie to themselves, and that awful habit is a stoppable form of self-imprisonment!
They often tell themselves one or more of these (or other) unhealthy thoughts:
- I’m not good enough
- I’ll never amount to anything
- I don’t belong or I don’t fit in
- Nobody cares about me
- I have to do it right or be right
- I’m not seen or heard unless I mess up
- Something’s wrong with me or I’m not normal
- I’m a bad mother/grandmother/daughter/spouse/partner/sister
- What I want doesn’t matter
- I can’t do anything about it
- I have to do everything myself
- God won’t help me or God’s getting back at me
Where do these lies come from?
Typically, false beliefs have their roots in some incident or dynamic that goes way back, perhaps to childhood.
Take my 6th grade report card story, for example. As my fellow 12-year-old classmates and I put on coats to go home one report card day, we showed each other our grades–As, Bs, Cs, and Ds in the main subjects; V for Very Good, S for Satisfactory, or N for Needs Improvement in the behavior category.
Looking at my report card, classmates exclaimed, “Wow, you’re gonna clean up! Do your parents give you a quarter for every A?” I had straight As, and it was in the 60s.
“No,” I said, “I’m going to be in big trouble.”
Sure enough, that night my parents grounded me for weeks, because I got an N in Paying Attention. That day reinforced my belief that nothing I did was good enough, a LIE that kept me stuck in crippling perfectionism for decades. (Of course, the irony is that my paying-attention skills did need improvement — not so much to understand the subject lessons, but simply to be a better listener.)*
Awareness, Improvement, Steps to Overcome, and then Freedom
I became aware of the compulsiveness of my perfectionism through personality assessments, by loved ones pointing it out, and from my spiritual directors. When I was in Spiritual Direction School, I had some Aha’s and started lightening up a bit. In Kaizen-Muse™ Creativity Coaching training, while I was writing my first book, my perfectionism came up again. I began consciously lowering my expectations of myself and realizing what a burden and barrier perfectionism had become. Shortly thereafter, in doing Heart Work and Spiritual Cleansing with Convergence™ and UNBOUND ministries, I renounced and became (mostly) free of the lies that I’m not good enough and that I always have to do things right or be right!
If I were still trapped in perfectionism, I wouldn’t dare to express concepts like this on a blog or to teach the concepts I share in my teleclasses. I’d be waiting until I’d read all I could on each subject and had “perfect” posts and teaching outlines—a day that would never arrive. Instead, I accept that only God is perfect, and that in yielding to the Holy Spirit as I write, teach, or make quilts, God can work through me. My weakness becomes an instrument for God’s grace to flow through. Daring to rely on this is what I call Holy Boldness. And I believe that every day we can all sow Holy Boldness into the art of life, however you interpret that!
Being free of those lies has opened up so much good, and so much creativity, that I can’t wait to help others get freed of their lies, too—whatever form those lies take!
The good news is that, whatever your habitual lies are, they don’t need to plague you any longer! You can break out of the prison of those false beliefs. You CAN get past the lies, forgive whatever hurt or pain that may have led to them, and put on a mindset of new beliefs to replace those lies!
Where You Can Get Help
Read Unbound by Neal Lozano, the book that came out of 30 years of experience in using the 5 Keys approach to healing and deliverance. After you’ve read the book and reflected upon your life’s stories and who or what still breeds hurt, resentment, bitterness, ill will, etc., set up an appointment to receive individual Unbound prayer ministry. You’ll typically meet for 60 to 90 minutes with a prayer leader and an intercessor who will pray with you, listen to your story non-judgmentally, confidentially, and with an ear to you and to the Holy Spirit, so they can guide you through the 3 Keys and help you unlock the door to healing and freedom in Christ. If you’re in Northern California, please visit our ministry page and complete a request form.
Note to Mom:
*My mom reads my newsletter, so to her I say: “Hey, Mom, you know I’ve long ago forgiven everyone involved in that little story, and I ask you to forgive me for telling it again! In fact, I’m grateful it happened, because it demonstrates how seemingly minor and inadvertent things can have unintended consequences and can become some of our best teachers. You’ve also been one of my best teachers! I love you!”
by Chris Boersma Smith | May 18, 2015 | Mindset
Worry and guilt are disruptive time wasters, the former looking forward and the latter looking backwards. If you catch yourself in them, focus on taking some deep breaths, both to cleanse yourself and to release tension, as well as to bring yourself back to the present moment.
Most dreaded worries never materialize, and Christians have a more useful approach: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”~Philippians 4:6-7. If you can turn your worries over to God, let go, and trust, you’ll be so much freer!
Most guilt is unwarranted unless you did something unethical, against applicable laws, or intentionally harmful to another being. That’s not the kind of guilt I hear about most from coaching clients. Their guilt involves choosing between two upstanding things, like making a special dinner and investing time in an art project; answering email first thing in the morning or sitting down and writing for 20 or 30 minutes at the start of the day; a little more sleep versus a little more prayer or meditation; saving for the offsprings’ tuition or spending on inspiring art supplies. Psychologically speaking, that’s “inappropriate” guilt.
Instead of wallowing in guilt, let it go once you’ve given yourself a chance to figure out what message the guilt has for you. If the message seems to be that it’s wrong to take time for yourself or for your creativity, I daresay you very well may have gotten the message wrong. In fact, when women take care of themselves, not only they but everyone around them benefits. Good self-care, even pampering, is sacred! Plus, God intended his creatures to express their creativity. There is a time for every purpose under heaven ~Ecclesiastes 3:1 ~ and both self-care and creativity are blessed purposes. So, see if you can take a few small steps towards creativity, even if other priorities need to consume the bulk of your energies at this point in your life.
Last summer I was feeling bogged down by a long list of perceived shoulds and some related guilt, so I started an intuitive writing exercise with each sentence beginning, “Now it’s time to . . ..” Writing as fast as I could, without enough time for actual thinking, I scribbled down whatever popped into my head. Today I searched my computer for anything I’d saved about guilt and this writing exercise popped up. I’ll share it with you in the hope that you might try the exercise and benefit from your own insights. You may want to do it right now, before you read what I wrote.
* * *
OK, so now you’re back.
I’m calling what emerged for me (through the Holy Spirit, no doubt) Permission from Deep Within:
Now it’s time to shine as I am.
Now it’s time to show my freedom.
Now it’s time to create in all areas of my life.
Now it’s time to help other people shine in their lives.
Now it’s time to serve in love.
Now it’s time to share for the fun of it!
Now it’s time to let go of people pleasing.
Now it’s time to release guilt.
Now it’s time to let go of taking care of everyone else.
* * *
What emerged for you?
by Chris Boersma Smith | Nov 23, 2014 | Encouragement and Inspiration, Freedom, Gratitude, Mindset
How about trying your hand at a poem of gratitude, giving yourself 5 minutes or less to see what bubbles up when the first letter of each line starts with the letters that spell “Gratitude?”
Here’s my Gratitude Poem:
Thanks to Depositphotos.com/PetarPaunchev,
this photo was licensed to Chris@ReapAsYouSew.com.
Great are our opportunities,
Resplendent our God!
Abundance is God’s offer and desire for us,
There for the asking.
I embrace with
Thanksgiving
Unlimited possibilities:
Doing and being,
Evolving in freedom!
Please, feel free to post your Gratitude poems as Comments!
