Your Past - Your Future

Hey, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, me, Dr. Ray Self. Thank you so much for being a part of this. I've had a faithful listening group for a long time now. And you guys who have been downloading my show every week, I want you to know I'm very grateful, and you're the reason I keep doing this show. Again, we're sponsored by the International College of Ministry, icmcollege.org. We're always enrolling. We're always full of the Holy Spirit, and we're always ready to equip you for your call. Period. Again, thank you for listening to the show. I’m going to get really personal today, so stay tuned, and God bless.

 

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All right, everyone. Here we go. I want you to understand that there are things in your past that are shaping you, that are defining you, that are influencing you right now. The problem is, a lot of people are not aware of it, and we're going to talk about that even more in the next show. When I was, I want to tell you a story about myself, and I, this is to me, it's very personal. It's very private but…I guess I say it's private, but I'm making it public right now. But the influence was tremendous. 

 

You know, I'm, I'm a baby boomer, born in 1951, you know, raised by the greatest generation. And my parents were amazing. You know, we were, lived kind of the American dream. We had a three-bedroom, one-bath house. That originally wasn't even air-conditioned, in uh, East Memphis, which was a really nice area, East Memphis, Tennessee. And you know, I was raised by a father who was a World War II veteran and a mother who was a stay-at-home mom. Of course, back then, that's how you did it. The, the dad went to work, the mom stayed home. Unfortunately, my father did have a good job, but it was a traveling salesman job, which was not uncommon back then. And sadly, uh, you don't see this very often anymore, but the traveling salesman job meant that my dad left home at 8:00 on Monday morning and did not come back till 5 on Friday afternoon every single week. And then sometimes on Saturday, he'd have to go into the office for a sales meeting. So, I really only saw my dad for one and a half days a week. 

 

And they were, you know, they were, they were good days. My dad was a great man. He was a World War II veteran, part of the greatest generation. Uh, the thing I loved about my dad was he was an absolute man of integrity. His integrity was just amazing. If my father said he was going to do something, he did. If he made a promise, it was locked in stone. He was one of those guys that uh, he could do a real estate deal with a shake of a hand. He always taught me, you know, a man's word is his bond. And that's the way my dad lived. My father worked hard. He, his paycheck went to my mother. My mother paid all the bills with it. Um, he never, we would laugh. He never really saw his paycheck. He never really saw his paycheck. My mother would give him a little allowance each week that, that for his, his spending money, but the rest of the money went to the family.

 

Now, my mother and father were great, great people. My mother was a brilliant lady. Brilliant lady. As a matter of fact, my mother was an associate professor at uh, college when she was 16 years old. Incredible story. Had a photographic memory, a genius IQ. My father was a country boy from North Alabama, you know, combat veteran, rough and tough man's man, alpha male kind of guy. But this– I could go on and on and on about my parents, but here's what I want to get across to you. What my father did was, and remember, your parents are doing the best they can, according to the information and the way they were raised and what they knew. So, you know, I want to be careful that we don't go back and condemn our parents for some of the dysfunctional things because our parents were doing the best they knew how at that time. 

 

So, my dad, I knew my father loved me, but he never complimented me. He would correct me. He would tell me what I did wrong, or tell me what I did incorrect or give me a suggestion on how to do something better. Well, what he did not do was he never put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Son, I'm proud of you. You can do it. Man, you're amazing. You're great. I am so happy with the way you are. You can just go for it. Go for it, son. You got this. You got this." He wasn't that kind of guy. He was a guy that would be there for you and just tell you the mistakes that you made and point them out. And my mother had a lot of health issues, and so many times she was emotionally unavailable because of health issues, which is another long story. 

 

So what I was missing growing up was the father's affirmation. The father's affirmation is critical for young men and, and for women. Remember Jesus, when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan, He got His Father's affirmation. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jesus like a dove. He comes out of the water. The Spirit of the Lord descends upon Him. And then a voice from heaven said, "This is My Son in whom I'm well pleased." Every young man and young woman needs the affirmation of their father. Terrible things happen with, without that. So my dad never affirmed me. He corrected me, but his faithfulness, his provision, um his, his unbelievable honesty and integrity always influenced me. Uh, he had a great sense of humor, and he was really good at, at accepting my friends. Um, loved to work in the yard, loved to garden, which you know, I picked that up from him. I still love to do that. But I was never told, I was told what I did wrong or how to do something better, but I was never told what I did right. And it left a hole in my soul that I did not realize was there. 

 

What was happening was my self-esteem was being affected in a very negative way. And it wasn't affected by what my dad did. It was affected by what he didn't do. Since my father wasn't there so much, um, at my baseball games, I love to play sports. Um, my mother and father, I think of all the baseball games I played, they only came to one game. Uh, I was dropped off at the game and picked up usually late after the game. So, I was, never had that, “I'm proud of you. Go for it, son.”

 

My mother suffered with a spirit of fear. And so she was always telling me to “be careful, be careful, be careful. You might get hurt. Be cautious. Don't, you don't want to do that. Something may happen to you.” She was always warning me with all this caution. And so my mother, with her caution, and my father, with the inability to tell me that I was good at something and that he was proud of me, and to compliment me, gave me a message that, and I know they meant well, and I love my parents, but the message was “Ray, you're not as good as other people. You are, you don't quite measure up.” And I really remember, jealous of other guys. Like I felt like other guys in my high school that people were literally better than me. Um, I remember my dad one time bragged on a neighborhood boy. And it hit me really hard. Um, a neighborhood– one of my neighbors got accepted to play football for– at University of Mississippi. My dad bragged on that. “Wow. So and so's playing football University of Mississippi.” And I remember thinking, "What about me?" You know, "What about me?" But at the time, as you're growing up in this dysfunction, I didn't realize it was dysfunction. It was just normal for me.

 

But growing up, and I get into college, my self-esteem is very low. And it caused me, and I'm not making excuses, but I looked for ways to escape. I didn't know what I was trying to escape, but I wanted to escape. And so when I found marijuana and the hippie movement, it gave me a fantasy world where I didn't feel the pain. And I didn't know what pain I was feeling, but I was feeling something. And I remember thinking that I felt better when I was doing marijuana than when I wasn't doing marijuana. That became a huge problem for me. I don't want to get off on marijuana, but I hate marijuana. I hate what it does to people. I will never ever, ever vote for it to be legalized. Don't give me this medical stuff. It's, it's a bad, bad addictive drug. Don't get me started on that soapbox.

 

So, fast forward as an adult, I began to get aware. I became self-aware with the Holy Spirit and with God, and of course, degrees and counseling. I became very self-aware. And I became very self-aware that I had some self-esteem issues that I could answer through the word of God. I had some um, issues of feeling illegitimate, and the big thing was– the big message that, that, the big message that came across to me from my childhood was, is, I really don't matter as much as other people. And sometimes I felt like I did not matter at all. And it wasn't what was done. It was what…I missed. It was what was not given to me. 

 

But here's what I want you to get across: I'm aware of that. You see, the Bible says we should not be ignorant of Satan's schemes. Paul wrote this, um, in Ephesians. Um, yeah, no Corinthians. Okay? Then in Ephesians, he says, "Put on the full armor of God so you may overcome the schemes of the enemy." Well, Satan used this, “Ray, you don't really matter. You don't really count” message that was inadvertently given to me by my parents, you know, and God bless them. They didn't really know what they were doing, that, you know, I'm not blaming them. I'm just saying this is what happened to me. Because you remember, my parents provided for me, that, I knew they loved me. Um, I, I, the integrity, the provision, you know, the, the good things we had was amazing. But what I didn't get, the affirmation, the confidence building, “I'm proud of you. Go for it.” The compliments, the building me up, the encouragement, gave me a message that got internalized that I lived and reacted to a lot of my life until I became aware of it. I came out of denial - and we'll talk about that in the next show. And then by that awareness, I was able to fight that message and the influence it had on my life. 

 

And even today, here I am, 74 years old. Every now and then, you know, they say that memories don't age. Something will happen where I feel ignored or overlooked, and it causes an emotional trigger in me that's– and a pain in me that's more than it should be because I was overlooked, I was ignored, or I was not, I was, felt disrespected. It still causes unusual pain, which tells me I still have a little sore spot from that. 

 

But what I want you to know is, we should be aware– and here comes, aware of the schemes of the enemy. So what Satan does, he sees me, he sees the pattern of my life, and then he feeds on it and he reinforces the negative. He amplifies the negative in my life so he can hamper me because I have a call of God on my life, and that is to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to write books. But you see, if I fell into the trap of believing this message and living out this message, “as the man thinks in his heart so is he,” it would hamper me from doing what God's called me to do, which is a threat to the devil.

 

And so the point of this podcast is, [coughs] excuse me, is I want you, do not be unaware of the influences in your life because you can say, "Well, that's years ago. That's water under the bridge.” It may be water under the bridge, but it's still having an influence in your life. And the way you overcome it is you recognize it, and you say, "I am not going to receive this." And then you find the counter to it in the word of God because the word of God encourages us. Like for me, the word of God tells me incredible things about myself that I'm above, I'm not beneath. I am the head, I'm not the tail. I'm a joint heir with Jesus Christ. I'm a member of the royal priesthood. I'm an adopted child of God. Jesus loved me so much, He gave His life for me. I've been risen with Christ and seated with, seated with Him in heavenly places. [coughs] Excuse my cough. And these things are incredible. And I'm replacing the lies with the truth. 

 

It's been said that it takes six positives to undo one negative. We need a lot of positive reinforcement in our life. We need a lot of positive reinforcement in our life. But what I want you to understand is, it is foolish to think that the years of influence in your life, especially those formative years, are not having an impact today. An impact today in your behavior and in your life can affect your future. You know, it's been said in, in counseling, we have an expression that, that we use quite often that undealt with emotions will express themselves in unexplained ways. If you do not deal with the emotional wounds from your past, it comes out. It begins to manifest in your behavior. It'll manifest in your relationships. It'll manifest in your success. For instance, if your esteem is not where it needs to be, what we tend to do is self-sabotage. Because even though we want good things, whenever we have good things happen to us underneath it all, we don't believe we deserve it. And so, subconsciously, we begin to sabotage success. And that's a whole nother show right there. 

 

Now, listen. I don't think we need to focus on the past, but I want you to get real and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you wounds that still need to be healed because these wounds, even though you may be completely unaware of it, they're affecting you. They're affecting the way you react. They're affecting the way you move forward. They're affecting your relationships. They're, they're affecting the way you, you act as a mother and act as a father. They're affecting your job.

 

So, it's time to come out of denial, get real, and know that we have some pain. You may have some pain and some wounds from the past that are still sore and are still influencing your behavior, and influencing your vision and your ability to function. I want you to be whole. I– Jesus said, "I want to give you life and life more abundantly." And by His stripes, we are healed. Okay? And the Bible says, "I wish you'd be whole in body, soul, and spirit." God wants us to be whole. And the way to be whole is have enough courage to face your past to see if it's influencing your present, manifesting in your present, and hindering your future.

 

So when you face it, and you recognize it, and you confess it, and you bring it to the Lord, then the Holy Spirit can come in and heal it. You submit it to Him. Cast your burdens upon the Lord, and He can heal this, set you completely free to be more of who you're created to do, and give you that peace that passes all understanding and live that full, abundant life to overflowing. Amen. Amen. 

 

Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to the show. I know this was kind of a heavy-duty show, but Lord, anyone listening who's ready to receive this, if there's something we need to remember, something we need to know, a wound that needs to be healed, show it to us now. And Father, I ask for your Holy Spirit to bring your healing balm into the– Let your healing presence flow into every wound, every spot. Father, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Lord, show us the sore spots. Show us the places. And Lord, whatever you have shown us, it's time now for your healing to come in. Your wholeness to come in, your redemption, your restoration. Holy Spirit, heal all those wounds and messages from our past which are triggering our present. Heal us now, Father. Set us free so we can be more of you called us to be, more of who you created us to be, and fulfill that call and purpose on our life. Holy Spirit, have your way. Have your way now. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen and Amen.

 

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Phew, kind of a heavy show. Thank you so much for listening. I pray this was a blessing to you, and I pray that if the Holy Spirit is showing you something, don't get into condemnation. Know it's a good thing. There’s an old expression that says the Holy Spirit will reveal it to heal it. Let Him heal it. Let Him have it right now so you'll be free. In Jesus’ name I pray. 

 

Thanks again for listening to this show. Don't forget to go to the website for the show, icmcollege.org/selftalk. That's the website. That's where you have– every show is there. Plus, you can subscribe, rate, review. That helps us a lot. Please share this with some people. Let's get some more downloads. Thank you so much for listening. God bless you. This is Dr. Ray.