Have you ever experienced breakthrough and healing in an area that has plagued you forever, only to find weeks, months or years down the road, you feel like you’re right back where you started? This is more common than we realize.

What is the problem? Why do we seem to take one step forward and two steps back in our journeys to healing? Why do we revert back to old mindsets and unhealthy reactions when things we thought we’d overcome trigger us again? It can be very depressing, and many just give up and accept this is my life and this is how I am.

But we don’t have to quit. The Lord has shown me there are layers to healing, and only He knows when we’re ready to go deeper into the next layer. So when we feel like failures after taking those two steps backwards again, the Lord is trying to tell us that we’ve finally reached the place where we are ready to go to the next layer of healing.

We tend to measure our healing by our thoughts and actions. If we’re able to control our thoughts and actions better, we feel like we’ve gotten victory over what needed to change. But true healing does come about by behavior modification, by just changing the way we think and act. We can only have complete healing when we dig deeper to find the root cause of why we do what we do. Then it’s time to dig out that root and deal with it.

I have been working on behavior modification and renewing my mind in many areas for years. Here are some examples. When my mind gravitates towards negativity and I start grumbling and complaining, I can now recognize the thoughts and change them into positive, thankful thoughts. But that doesn’t mean I have complete victory.

God has shown me that after I change my negative thoughts to positive ones, it’s now time to examine them and ask Him to show me what caused them in the first place. Has something triggered these thoughts that I’ve never dealt with and still need to? Am I stuck in an attitude that needs to change in some area?

When I start to have critical, judgmental, or condemning thoughts towards someone, I need to change those thoughts and pray for them. I ask God to help me see them through His eyes and love them with His love. But then I need to go further and ask Him why I’m feeling like this. Is there something that I still need to forgive? Do they trigger a past wounding in my heart?

Then there are times when I feel fear, worry, anxiety, or doubts. I can quickly transfer these to the Lord with prayers of faith and thanksgiving, and wait to see how He will take care of it. But these feelings often come back. It’s time to seek God as to the root of them. Am I not really trusting the Lord in these areas? Is there a root that needs to be dug out?

The same can be said for thoughts of unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, anger, bad attitudes, emotional outbursts and unhealthy reactions. We can learn to change our thoughts and behaviors, but we won’t be totally free of them until we deal with the root causes of them. Complete healing awaits us as we go through the process of peeling off the layers of healing that God will guide us through.

Hope Ministries is a Christian counseling center, and we are here to help. If you would like to speak confidentially with someone, give us a call at 845-482-5300.