Fruit Check
It’s a good idea to periodically take an inventory of the fruit in your life as you work on your healing in Immanuel Prayer. As we know, one of the main ways we test to see if this is real is to test the fruit (both short-term and long-term).
So recently, I was talking with a friend about what has happened in my own life since I began doing my healing work with Jesus.
The first thing that came to me was that I find myself in certain situations of life where I just don’t respond like I used to. As I work with Jesus weekly in my sessions, He takes me back through my life and heals the hurts and traumas that I have experienced. The toxic emotions and the lies that were associated with these painful places are healed. And I experience freedom in the present because that emotional content is no longer implicitly activating.
I can tell you that it is not always linear. It doesn’t always look like “I have _______ issue. Jesus heals a memory about that specific issue and I don’t feel that way anymore”. Instead, I find that it is more like a composite of all the healing work I have done. One healing impacts other areas of my life as well. The root system can be connected to other root systems. This is why the healing compounds and feels sneaky or subtle. Many times it takes a while to realize that I am not responding to situations like I have in the past. Really amazing how it all works!
The second thing I realized as I reflected was that I just feel more settled with Jesus. And I feel His settledness with me as well. This is birthed out of intimacy where I can experience His perfect love, perfect acceptance, perfect attunement, etc… It is a byproduct of the relationship. It flows from the living, interactive connection we have access to with the living Jesus. The more we experience the true Lord Jesus, the more secure our attachment becomes to Him.
The last piece I realized was that I am becoming more and more self-aware. After 43 years of life (not really living, not feeling life), disconnected from my emotions, completely lacking self-awareness, I have begun to grow in the ability to know when I am disconnecting emotionally. I can now sense when I am triggered and my relational circuits are fried / dim. This helps me in multiple ways. First, I can now stop and acknowledge that I am not feeling right. I can take a moment to connect with Jesus and let Him help me by attuning to me like only He can do. This allows me to cope until I can get with Him and my coach to work through the underlying issues behind the triggering. Secondly, this growing self-awareness allows me to see the triggering dynamic in others. Not to call it out in them (that is never a good idea!), but to help them by attuning to them so that they can reconnect and get their relational circuits back on.
So, take a moment. Get connected to Jesus. Reflect on your work with Him. As you look at Him in this moment, check and see how He feels about your work with Him. I’ll bet He might surprise you!