Sioux Lookout, Ontario
God is Changing Hearts
by Linda Martin (Cree)
Partner in Ministry
Ever since man’s fellowship and relationship with God was disrupted, through Adam’s disobedience and therefore man being sent out of the Garden of Eden, God our Father has been moving in His heart toward us. The ultimate expression of His heart is when He sent His Son, Jesus, to come into our world. But in this fallen world that we live in, where personal pain can often distort or veil this amazing gesture toward us, we do not clearly understand this great love. We fail to understand that God our Father has His heart and His hands open toward us. My husband, Rick and I, specifically address these crucial issues through our teaching, speaking, and counseling ministry.
One of the training events that I regularly help with is a “Ten Week Course in Biblical Counseling.” In this training program some of the key Biblical principles that are emphasized are:
- we live in a fallen world where a lot of pain takes place
- man has sinned and man is sinful
- man is separated from God
- God our Father has moved toward us to bring us back to Himself through His Son Jesus, and
- We need to repent from our ways that are not godly and from ways that hurt others.
Equally as important is realizing and understanding how personal pain has distorted our sense of self, our sense of the world around us and how we see God. This place of unresolved pain then can lead to strongholds of lies of self, the world, and about God.
A good part of this training program is spent in group sessions where each individual is supported to do in-depth personal work on their issues. This is based on the belief that a person can only take another person in their healing as far as they have gone in their own journey. It is in these group sessions then that a person discovers how much pain they still carry, and what lies they believe about themselves and how they still live them out. They come to a place of realizing how much the pain and the lies still influence their experiences in life – a life often in bondage to lies.
We recently finished a two-week intense group workshop. It is always amazing to see God working in the lives of people; God bringing freedom in the places of bondage where they have been for many years. It is always amazing to watch people experience personal freedom in who they are as individuals. There is often a definite change that takes place in individuals during these group sessions.
One such person was a native man who found his voice. The expression “finding our voice” is a phrase that we use when an individual realizes that what they have to say is important. It is important because it is “their thoughts” in who they are as an individual. The “lie” that this man believed for so long was that he had “nothing to say” or “what he had to say” to others was not important. Therefore he became “quiet” as an individual and that was how he came to our group. This particular “lie” came from years of abandonment by his parents, and by the intimidation of others during his crucial developmental years as a child.
Over the two week period of personal intense work he came to a place where he realized and understood that as a man created in the image of God, he does have a voice and that his thoughts and what he has to say is “important”. As a testimony to this new belief about himself, he stood up to share in front of the group of about 30 people. This new belief, that what he had to say is “significant and important” gave him the courage to share his experience of the two weeks in front of a large group. Seeing God move in people’s lives as he did in this man’s heart, gives Rick and I great purpose and meaning as we minister to others.
We thank you for this opportunity to share of our ministry with you and for your faithful and on-going support through your prayers and your gifts.