Chapter Eight. Breaking the OK Stronghold

Exchanged Glory II: The OK Stronghold

I interrupted my meltdowns before they reached a critical point.

The Jesus Drug

It is the truth that makes us free; truth influences how we view everything else in life. For example, truth affects what we consider love to be. I grew up with the OK Stronghold as my guide, so I thought of love in terms of OK feelings. In my mind, if someone loved me they would give me a warm fuzzy inner sense of joy. Those who cared for me would help me to be happy. They would chase away my insecurities and calm my fears.

When I gave my life to Jesus, I expected His ultimate love to produce ultimate OK feelings. It wasn’t that I thought my life would be easy. I knew I would have to die to myself and obey Him, but somehow when all was said and done, I expected to feel great while doing it. If God was love, He would be like the greatest possible drug – He would make my life wonderful on the inside regardless of what was happening on the outside.

Instead, I found myself locked in a spiritual battle that never seemed to end. Doubts gnawed at me. Confusion stood like a rock wall that had to be slowly chipped away. Pain festered in old and new wounds with no relief in sight. I had to stand in faith year after year while my emotions cried out, “I’m not OK!” It didn’t feel like love.

In many ways, I am on the other side of this process now, and I feel much better, but I have learned that Jesus doesn’t want to be my drug. Instead, He wants to give me the wisdom to handle turmoil in my emotions in the middle of difficulties in my life. There is a war going on, and He calls me to be a soldier who can bring His grace in the heat of the battle. I have to face the darkness that confronts me and follow Him into the fray.

His plan is much bigger than I can handle on my own, pushing me past my pride and into His supernatural ability. The OK Stronghold can’t get me where I need to go. Only His truth can bring me to a place where I experience the reality of His love.

No Easy Solution

We have been bombarded since early childhood with misleading sales pitches that have offered us the world at little cost. A thousand broken promises and broken hearts have left us skeptical. Our emotions have been played with in ways that former generations could never have predicted.

Who are we? Many of us don’t know. Part of us hangs onto the image of God in which we were created. Another part has been programmed to be a money making and spending machine. Another part longs for love and friendship. How do we bring it all together to find meaning and purpose in life? There is an ignorance that is in us, and our understanding has been darkened (Ephesians 4:17).

Deception has always been a problem, but it has taken a new form in our day. We are an experiment into what happens when you can package and sell anything, including sin. In order to deal with our situation, we need wisdom that no previous generation had. (We don’t need any <page 55>more truth than they had. God has given us all of the truth we need in the Bible, but we need new wisdom to apply it to our situation.)

Our forefather’s solution was generally to stay away from temptations. That was easier in their day. In our day, technology has allowed us to be bombarded from every side. It is hard to avoid facing the world’s lure without dropping out and giving up on our ability to shine God’s light.

Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand — shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

(Matthew 5:14-16, The Message)

The “stay away from trouble” approach couldn’t have worked for me. Though I took steps to avoid temptation, they couldn’t be enough. The problems weren’t just around me; they were in me. Everyday life aroused fears and enticements that drove me toward sin, and there was no way to run without hiding my light under a bucket.

How can those of us who live in this kind of culture consistently feel God’s love in a practical way? I don’t have any easy answers, but I do have hope. Jesus can save us from the cacophony of voices that the devil throws at us. His love will give us the wisdom to avoid some activities and to walk on His narrow way through others.

Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life — to God! — is vigorous and requires total attention.

(Matthew 7:13-14, The Message)

I Didn’t Know I Had an Adult

When I read I’m OK-You’re OK, I began to see that a key to walking in God’s love was to use my reason and will to fight the lies that were influencing my heart. I learned that my Adult could overrule the draw of the world on my Parent and Child.

This allowed me to move past the conflicting OK messages spinning inside of me and to judge “OKness” by God’s word. I was able to decide who I would allow into my OK Jury. I was able to interrupt the pain and pleasure feedback loops of the OK Stronghold. When Fantasies started to grab me, I could refuse to play along. When Monsters Under the Bed chased me, I could face them and walk step by step through their terror.

I interrupted my meltdowns before they reached a critical point. It was a brutal change, and I was shocked that I had to go through it. Many times it didn’t feel like God’s love, but it allowed me to slowly gain control over my thoughts and actions.

Prev Fig

Next Fig

In the above picture, my Adult intercepts the message from my Parent to my Child (“You will be OK if: …”) and overrides it with the truth that the blood of Jesus makes me OK. I don’t have to prove myself. My Adult also overrides the message from my Child to my Parent (“I’m out of here …”) and says that life is about knowing Jesus, not feeling OK. My Adult uses God’s word to break the addictive mindset with truth.

It took time for me to get good at this, but I became stronger with practice. Reason and willpower were abilities I had to nurture and grow. Learning how to use them together with my emotions was difficult. The strongholds in my mind had led me into confusion, and I made many mistakes along the way. But as I saw the deceptions that had bound me, I began to by God’s grace lay down train tracks that eventually fixed those mistakes. Over time, I grew in my ability to remain in the love of Jesus.

If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done — kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.

(John 15:10, The Message)

Come Now Let Us Reason Together

<page 57> I mentioned in Exchanged Glory: A Vision of Freedom that I had viewed reason with a good deal of suspicion.^[28] My unbelieving father had told me that if I used it, I wouldn’t be a Christian. I was confused because I wasn’t clear about what he was saying. He was speaking as a secular humanist – to be reasonable was to accept only what humans could come up with by natural ability (which rules out the revelation of God’s word). Reason was opposed to faith.

I found that the Bible used the word differently.

"Come now, and let us reason together," says the LORD, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

(Isaiah 1:18)

I started to view reason as the ability to think through the implications of truth. When I could look at a situation, gather the important information (including God’s supernatural revelation), recognize what was true, and decide what should be done about it, I was being reasonable.

This led me to several “OK Busters” to help me escape from the OK Stronghold.

10 per page

Search Comments

This page has been visited 0002 times.

Contents