Training and Transformation | Ep 3

    Get these books:     In this episode:     The first training Keith went to to learn about spiritual warfare and healing and deliverance How Megan and I were both transformed by that prayer process.   Garbage and Rats   After being confronted by the witch doctor, which we shared in episode 2, we reached out to our missions agency for help.  Dr Charles Kraft was coming to train several of our missionaries    As Keith prepared for this training with Dr. Kraft, he read all the required readings and began to be stretched and get excited about the conference.  While Keith went to california for the training, Megan stayed behind with the kids.  In the beginning of all of this, Megan felt like this was more Keith’s journey than hers.  She wasn’t as open and had very limited understanding about all that Keith was learning.     At the training: Keith gets to the training in Pasadena with 150 other missionaries from all over the world.   Dr. Kraft began to talk about the realities of angels and demons and it being an every day part of life. Dr. Kraft shared about how he directly communicates with demons and that sounded absolutely crazy to Keith. Keith’s world view was begin confronted.   The bible did talk about signs and wonders, and the demon possessed man, but the filter on Keith’s mind was that that was what Jesus did back then, not today.     Demon’s demystified: The word demon needs to be demystified. There is a reality that demons are dark forces, filled with evil, and we live in a supernatural world.   If we are going to talk about angels, resurrection, Christmas, the virgin birth of Jesus, then we have to talk about the reality of evil and how that evil confronts us.   The word demon sounds scarier than it actually is. We have more power as children of God than any demonic force on this planet.   Garbage and Rats:    Dr. Kraft used a tangible picture to help us understand spiritual warfare. Imagine a pile of garbage and rats feasting on that garbage. The garbage represents the things that the enemy uses against us. Dr. Kraft said that if the enemy was going to torment us that he had to have some type of purpose, reason, or permission to do that (the garbage). If we left a pile of garbage on our floor, eventually rats would find it.   When a human walks in to the room the rats will scurry and run b/c they know we have more power and authority. If the garbage is left on the floor, and I leave the room, then the rats will eventually come back.   So here is how this analogy plays out in our spiritual life:  The brokenness, woundedness, and stuff that attracts the rats.  This healing prayer model that Dr. Kraft was teaching was showing us that because Christ has been there with us from the beginning, that no matter when in our life that we experienced garbage, that Jesus can come in to that place/experience in our our life and clean up that garbage. Dr. Kraft often quotes that says God knit you together in your mother’s womb and has been there since the beginning.  (10:33)   That verse teaches us that Christ is always with us so by inviting Jesus in to those broken moments, Jesus cleans up the garbage and takes the food from the rats away, and then we can tell those rats they have to get out and go straight to the cross in Jesus name. This process brings powerful healing.  Megan:  Dr Kraft taught us how to do healing and deliverance in a way that was healing and gentle and kind and not scary.  Holly wood has distorted spiritual warfare in to being something scary but if we operate under the authority we are given in Jesus name it doesn’t have to be scary.  

Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome to the Everfree Podcast.

I am Keith Peeler and I'm here with my amazing wife Megan Peeler.

And babe, we have a passion for prayer and prayer that sets people free, don't we? We sure do.

And the purpose of the Everfree Podcast is to share stories, biblical principles, concepts, and tools that are going to help you find freedom in a relationship with Christ that is naturally supernatural.

Okay, so in this episode number three, what you can expect to hear from us is the first training that I went to on our spiritual warfare and prayer of healing and deliverance ministry, and then a follow-up of how Megan and I both were transformed by that prayer process.

So we are going to just jump right in here.

And so in the last episode, we shared the story about the witch doctor that ended up on our front porch in East Dallas, because that happens every day.

Who would have thought? 

Right.

And we shared just how we had no idea what to do.

We were confronted with the situation.

And even after decade and a half or so of ministry experience, nothing had I ever experienced like that before.

Nothing for you? 

No, nothing.

No words.

Yeah, I had a lot of words for the Lord, but not a lot of words that day.

And so I immediately the next day, because we're still getting settled into this neighborhood, we're doing an entrepreneurial ministry.

We are starting something from scratch.

There's not a blueprint for this.

We are just, we mentioned this in the last episode, we're just learning how to ask the Holy Spirit what to do and to do it.

And so I called the head of our missions agency and I said, Sam, this is what happened.

I need some help.

And he shared with me that in the following January, about six months later, they were going to be bringing in Dr.

Charles Kraft, who was going to lead us on a basic spiritual warfare one on one and this inner healing training.

So of course I got signed up right away.

And we kind of went about our business.

We had lots of interesting stories, even more stories in that neighborhood that are kind of that's for another episode.

We'll do a whole episode on prayer walking and how the Lord kind of encouraged us and put us out in prayer walking.

So as we were beginning our time there, I was very excited about this training.

A couple months out, he sent out some books to read and I read them and I was like, hmm, this is stretching, but I think this is starting to make sense.

And then went out, you stayed home with the kids, kind of managed the house.

Do you remember, I don't remember your part of that story.

Do you remember like how you were thinking and feeling as I went to that training? I think I was feeling like this was your journey and I knew I was married to you and I was going to be part of that process, but I wasn't entirely open or had any understanding of what you were about to go and receive training on.

That's true.

Because we were praying in new ways and definitely God was showing up more tangibly, more experientially, pictures and words and songs are coming to us in different ways than they had before.

And so I felt prepared, but not prepared, right? 

So we get to the training and there's about 140, 150 missionaries from all over the world, we're in Pasadena, California, which is Dr.

Kraff's backyard.

And I just remember kind of jumping in and going, at first this made sense, but then he started talking about just the reality of angels and demons and how it's just an everyday part of life.

And then he's talked about how he directly communicated with the demons and I said, what?

 Yeah, that's crazy.

I kind of literally said, did that crazy old man just talk about talking to demons? 

And that was my first experience of like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

But it confronted my worldview, right? 

It confronted my worldview was, it was almost as if I would read the Bible and I could read the things about the demon-possessed man.

I could read the things about the miracles.

I could read the things about the signs and the wonders.

But there was this filter that said, yeah, but that was Jesus.

That was back then.

And I believe the Holy Spirit moved, but I didn't really.

Yeah.

And in the church, I don't think we ever really talked about the demonic stuff.

Not in our church.

It was, I mean, I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit, but not a lot about spiritual warfare.

Right.

And that word demon, we're going to use it a lot because I want to demystify that word.

Yeah.

I don't like the word because of what it does to people, but call it a dark force, call it evil.

A naughty messenger.

Naughty messengers.

We've used that word with children, praying children before.

But the reality of our life's experiences, we are supernatural people.

God is a supernatural God, and we live in a supernatural world.

And we believe in sciences.

We are not some of those nutjob crazy people who think that you don't need science because we have Jesus.

Not that way.

God gave us all of those tools.

But if we're going to talk about angels, if we're going to talk about resurrection, if we're going to talk about Christmas, virgin birth, if we're going to talk about those things, then we have to talk about the reality of the evil and how that evil confronts us.

And that's really, I think, what unsettled me and challenged my worldview.

I was aware that evil existed.

I had participated in evil.

Right.

I am flesh.

But in that, there was a confrontation that there might actually be something specifically affecting Keith Peeler.

And you mean, like, tormenting.

Yes.

Right.

And so, I guess my mindset was, okay, yes, I know my flesh is broken, therefore temptation is real, and it is evil when I sin because my flesh is broken.

But I didn't really have a concept that there might be a physical manifestation of that evil, i.e.

a demon, that might actually be tangibly affecting me.

And so when he used that language of confronting that in an individual person, as he was unpacking this prayer scenario that he gave, I was like, wait, what, what, what? 

And what I loved about his teachings was they were totally non-charismatic.

And if you're a charismatic brother, please hear this for this.

When I say stuff like that, I have nothing against the charismatic church.

I actually love the charismatic church, but my church experience was different.

And because it was different, I didn't know how to deal with it.

And he was non-charismatic, meaning he didn't whip anything up with emotion.

It was straightforward.

He was fairly monotone.

His teaching was straightforward.

All of it was very, very approachable and very easy to understand.

So that was helpful for me coming from a mainline background, because I didn't have any fear that he was somehow different, but he was challenging my worldview.

And so in that training, he began talking about how it is that things could come to mess with us.

And one of the pictures that he has used, that we have used along in the kind of follow-up teachings we've taught some of Craft's material as we train others, has been this picture of garbage and rats.

And I've loved this analogy because it's very tangible, and I can picture it very easily.

And in the training, he went over the different reasons why there might be garbage in our life, right? 

So he talked about sins could create garbage in our life, that there could be some sort of family curses, the Old Testament idea of sins of the Father, bloodlines, that kind of thing.

There could be things that just kind of come down to us through generations of sinfulness within a particular family line, that there might be, if we have been abused in some way, that that might create a wound or garbage.

And the concept that he shared was that the enemy, if the enemy is going to torment us, that the enemy has to have some purpose or reason or permission, if you will, to be able to do that.

And things that happen to us, some of them self-inflicted and some of them inflicted upon us by others, that that creates the wounds, or i.

e.

the garbage that allows the enemy to mess with us.

And so the picture was, okay, if I physically have a piece or a pile of garbage on the floor in my home, which would never happen, my wife is an amazing and we are keeping our house nice and clean, but if we did, and there would be a pile of garbage there, eventually rats would find it.

Because rats do that, that's what they do.

They find the garbage and they feed off of it.

But babe, if I walk into the room and flip the lights on, what happens to the rats? They're gonna scurry, they're gonna run and hide.

But why do they run and hide? 

They're scared of you.

Yeah.

They know you have more power and authority.

That's right.

So in the physical realm, if I flip those lights on, the rats know that I'm stronger than they are.

But if I leave that garbage in the floor and I walk back out of the room, what happens to the rats? 

They come right back.

And why? 

Because they know the trash is still there and they can go feast on it.

And that's what they're looking for.

They're looking for something to feed off of.

So here's how that analogy plays out in our spiritual life.

The brokenness, the woundedness, the stuff.

And we can do another episode on the holistic list of things that could be your garbage.

Right? 

That's a future episode.

But in that, the garbage is there.

We all have it.

And some of the garbage in our life doesn't attract rats.

It's insignificant garbage.

Sinfulness, things like that, whatever.

But there's some stuff in us that definitely attracts the garbage.

And so the idea would be that in this healing prayer model that Kraft was modeling for us, his invitation was because Christ has been there with us from the beginning, that no matter when in our life we experience garbage, that Jesus can come into that place in our life and clean up that garbage.

So he often quotes Psalm 139 that says, he knit you together in your mother's womb.

So theologically, we can understand that whether I came to Christ as a five-year-old or a 50-year-old, my understanding and my recognition of Christ in my life is insignificant to Christ's place in my life.

That verse teaches us amongst others that Christ is always with us.

And so by inviting Jesus into those broken moments of our lives that Jesus could clean up the garbage, therefore taking the food for the rats away.

And once that garbage was cleaned up, we can tell the rats where to go, get out, go straight to the cross, go straight to Jesus's throne, wherever.

And in that process, because Christ has healed the garbage, then when we tell the rats to leave, there's nothing for them to come back to to feed off of.

Yeah, and the thing that I love about Dr.

Kraft is that he taught us how to do healing and deliverance in a way that was caring and gentle and kind and not scary.

I think Hollywood has distorted the spiritual warfare aspect into being something very scary, but if we're operating under the authority that we're given in Jesus' name, it doesn't have to be so scary.

No, it doesn't.

And we have learned from some hard lessons too to not invite people into that process, but to let them come to that process on their own.

We've made that mistake in the past and it hasn't gone well.

And so what we recognize is that this is an intimate process, this healing prayer is an intimate process, but the concept is here is what we want to focus on, and that is this idea that inviting Jesus in.

So here's where the railroad hits the road, okay? 

He's explained this stuff.

He's also talked about how as humans we store our memories like pictures or little video clips in our brain, right? 

Like if I say to you, hey babe, remember a time when you were fishing with your dad and your five years old.

You don't see a typewriter type those words across.

No, I see Rockport, Texas on a sailboat.

Yes, you do.

I knew you'd go there because that's what I know about your history.

But you get a, you can picture it.

Sometimes you can even smell the smells, right? 

Just our, I have a counselor friend who calls it the redemptive imagination.

The gods are redemptive imagination.

I love that.

I do too.

And so what Kraftwood taught us was you identify where the garbage is coming from, and then you would say, okay, now that I see this garbage as a picture in my mind, where is Jesus either in that picture or what does Jesus say to me about that picture or, you know, using that redemptive imagination of really seeing or sensing or hearing Jesus speak to us about that issue.

And he used a very chronological method.

He would start off in the womb and he starts counting up.

So we're in this large, we're in this large group setting.

My head is still kind of spinning like, this makes sense, but this doesn't make sense.

Like this, it didn't make sense only because I hadn't done it and hadn't been used to it.

But all of the things he was talking about, the scriptures he was bringing up were all like right there.

Everything was right there.

And so he said, like, we're going to do a little experiment here in the group.

So I'm gonna start counting you up and I'll count you up from, you know, year by year.

And at a certain year, if you get something, pause with that moment and then ask Jesus where were you or invite him into that picture or something.

Okay.

So hesitantly, he starts and now he's like, okay, he counts up people in the womb.

He's like, all right, now you're one years old? 

Nothing.

Now you're two.

Nothing.

Now you're three.

I'm like, I don't know, this is working.

Now you're four.

Boom.

Instantly I get a picture.

So here's the background to this picture though.

Let me tell you this part of my story.

Before Megan and I were married, I confessed to her a very strong struggle with pornography.

And that pornography issue was something I didn't want, but I wrestled with it.

I had all of the mechanical things.

Everything every good church will ever tell you about stopping porn.

I had, I had accountability partners.

I had prayer.

I had, I recognized when I was prone, like when he needed that halt analogy, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, when I'm there, stay away from the computer.

I had all those things in my life, but somehow still found myself there a couple of key times in our early part of our marriage that were devastating.

It was the hardest part of our marriage.

Absolutely.

Struggling through this.

Absolutely.

It was attacking our intimacy.

Right.

And I had had counseling.

I had read books.

I had done all of the truly things and I could not understand why I couldn't kick this thing.

Then I had resolved myself like, this is a thorn in my flesh.

This is never going to go away.

And thank God for the blood of Jesus that covers me because I can't get free of this.

And I had resigned myself to that thought.

Okay.

That's the background.

So then he's Dr.

Now I'm back in the seminar.

Dr.

Kraft is counting us up.

Now he says, now you're four and instantly, not granted.

I'm a very visual person.

Not everyone gets instant pictures.

So don't think that you have to get an instant picture, but I did.

And instantly I got a picture of being four years old and I went right to the very first time that I was exposed to hardcore pornography.

I can see the bedroom.

I can see who was there.

I can see where the box of magazines was in the closet.

I didn't see the covers or any of the stuff that was on it, but I got the very clear picture and I instantly saw like a four year old version of me, like four year old Keith to sit on the floor looking back at the door like, Oh God, am I going to get caught? 

And I could just see shame and fear and just brokenness all over this little boy.

Right.

And I'm like, okay, that's a very clear picture.

And then according to his model that he says, now ask yourself, where is Jesus in this picture? 

And so I said, okay, Jesus, where are you? 

And he goes, okay, that's enough for the day.

I was like, whoa, hold on.

I was just getting there.

And then he said, okay, now you have the model.

You can go home tonight, wherever you're staying, and you can do this for yourself.

So I was like, I don't wait.

Okay.

All right.

So I was staying at my friend's house in, in the Fullerton area where near the training and I was on central time and we're on the east coast.

Sorry, west coast.

And so I wake up way earlier than everybody else, like four or five o'clock in the morning and I wake up and I think about the training and I, and I remember his words.

Okay, you can do this for yourself.

I was like, okay, here we go.

So I just did the one, two, three, four.

And sure enough, I saw the exact same picture again.

And I just, I was almost like, I felt it like I could just see little key and I just felt this like shame and this paranoia or fear or whatever being caught.

And, and honestly, like the shame of like, Jesus is going to catch me is Jesus going to catch me.

And that's right.

Now Jesus, where were you when that happened to me? 

And instantly, again, I get pictures fast.

So this is normal.

This is easy for me.

And I feel like it was God's blessing on this whole time.

I see Jesus and when I see him, like I get, I don't get like the storybook Jesus that you see in like the old school flannel glove, like stuff.

Of course you don't.

No, I see this, this ripped up Jesus and he is strong.

He's dark skin and he is powerful.

He's manly and he just walks.

He is, you don't need that anymore.

And he picks up four year old Keith, puts me on his hip like a dad would, you know, like your dad being like, Hey little buddy, let's go.

So let's get out of here.

And I see him, tansy walk me out the door.

And I remember thinking, wait, you're not mad at me.

You're not ashamed of me.

You don't think I'm a pervert.

You don't think I'm broken.

And all I use was smiling like, you don't need that anymore.

Let's get out of here.

And then in my mind's eyes, he walks me out the door.

I see like a cinder block wall.

It goes like, kind of like a, you know, just like magically just kind of circling the whole thing.

And in my mind, what that meant to me was like, this was like, this picture was God's way of showing me he was sealing it.

Like that memory is now sealed.

That, that what was once a broken memory is now a memory in a picture of, of overcoming and freedom because Jesus healed it in my heart that day.

And I said, okay, now what did crafts say after? 

He said, and then he said, now if there's any demonic activity or anything tormenting you because of that garbage, once the garbage is cleaned up, you can tell that stuff to go and it can't come back.

So very hesitantly, I said, okay, in Jesus name, if there's any, and I just kind of started making up words, like things I thought might be the names of demons.

Like if there's any lust, pornography, brokenness, shame, fear, perversion, in Jesus name, get out.

And in, in that moment, I tangibly felt things leave my body.

And I instantly went, I am free.

Praise God.

And those chains were broken.

And I have not had those chains ever again.

Now, here, here clearly, like as a man, I have struggled with that temptation.

And when that has happened, my wife and I have a clear understanding of how we communicate about that.

We have our boundaries around that stuff.

We talked it out and there's been forgiveness around it.

But, but from that day, that bondage, that demonic oppression, not possession, but that demonic oppression, that torment, all of that was dealt with and it went away.

Well, and when you called me with your experience, I heard something in your voice that sounded so different and so free in a way that I believed it and I trusted it.

And I think that's the thing with pornography, it's hard to trust your spouse to know that when they're away, that they're not misbehaving.

And so I think for me, it actually, your healing brought healing for me.

Yeah.

Well, right.

Because it's restoring our intimacy.

Yeah, for sure.

That our sexual intimacy is a very, very powerful thing.

And we have future episodes planned for that as well.

Because our intimacy with the father is, is negated by sin, right? 

Our intimacy with each other as a married couple is negated by sin.

Now this is my, there are other sins that can negate that as well.

But when I was being healed of that, it would, you know, we are one flesh, it was healing the both of us in different ways.

And so I just, of course, blown away, finished out the training, had another couple, just incredible experiences in the midst of that training.

And as I came home, I was a bit excited.

That's an understatement.

I tend to be a little excitable.

Oh, we both are.

I don't know if that's, if you don't, have you ever met us personally before? 

I'm a little bit excitable.

And so I came home and I firehosed Megan.

You sure did.

I mean, just jumped her case.

Right.

And what did I say to you? 

You need this.

It was like, well, I don't know what you mean by that.

I'm trying not to be offended, but I'm not really sure what you were talking about.

And my need to discover it on my own took me on a journey that allowed me to dive into reading books, reading scripture and discovering my own junk.

Actually, I didn't realize that I had as much junk as I did based on just what the lies that I believed.

And so as I started walking through a book that was a difficult read, it's called Defeating Dark Angels by Dr.

Kraft.

It's not the book that I would suggest starting with.

I wouldn't say it's a great book.

It would not be the first book on spiritual warfare, I'd recommend.

Yeah.

I give you authority was just an empowering book that just taught me about my authority and my identity.

And it was filled with scripture, but defeating dark angels was the one that the Lord led me to.

And I came to you and I was like, I'm ready.

I'm ready to deal with this stuff and get rid of this junk.

So it was a great and hard process.

Yeah.

And I remember, you know, of course, anytime you're excited about something and you are finding freedom in your walking Christ, you know, it's not uncommon, right? 

So you go to a conference.

Oh, you got to go to this conference.

You read a book.

Oh, you got to read this book.

This is me.

Change my life.

Yeah, for sure.

And so where we have grown and learned is that everyone is on a different journey.

There are different authors.

Some people don't read Kraft very well, don't like him very well.

They feel he's controversial or what, or other way.

Other authors people pick up and they like even better.

Rusty Rustenbach has a couple of books out there.

There are others that we will share and we'll put a couple of these links to these books in our podcast notes as you see them and they'll be on our website as well.

And in that though, my exuberance, you know, but I backed off.

I tried to be a good husband.

Yeah, you did.

It gave me a little while.

I gave you a little space.

And then when you were ready, you know, it was my chance to kind of practice what I had learned.

And I'll back up real quick to a short little story part of this.

So at the end of the week with this training with Dr.

Kraft, things are like starting to roll in my brain and I think are making sense.

And I think I need more training on this before I can go and do it.

I'm going to ask Dr.

Kraft if he'll mentor me.

So I already got permission from our missions agency to like come out once a month and kind of just see if I could do that.

And I said, Dr.

Kraft, if I came out once a month, would you mentor me? 

He goes, well, you could, but you don't need to.

Just go do it.

I love that about him.

And now he's messing with another worldview problem that I had.

My worldview was no, no, no.

I need training.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, the worldview I had was you're not allowed to preach or teach or do these things unless you've had the right proper training.

Like that's kind of this Western picture of Christianity that has, you know, where it started off in a good way is maybe snuck in and created maybe a barrier.

And so I said, no, no, no, Dr.

Kraft, you don't understand.

This is like the first time this week that I've ever even heard about these concepts.

And he was very kind and gentle with me over lunch.

He said, well, did you read the books I asked you to read? 

Oh, yeah, yes, sir.

Totally.

Yeah, I read them.

Yeah.

And did you get my syllabus at the beginning of our time together? 

Oh, yeah.

No, I got it.

Okay.

He goes, have you been here every day? 

Uh-huh.

Yeah, every day.

Every day.

Listening.

Did you listen? 

Just very kind, but very honest.

Oh, yes, sir.

Yeah, totally.

He goes, then just go try it.

Just go do it.

You're better off going to do it and try it.

And then if you run into some roadblocks, won't call me and I'll be happy to help.

And that's, that's what happened.

And so I thought, okay, well, here's my wife.

I'm going to try with her.

And then you read and you got ready.

And why don't you, I shared my testimony of my experience.

Why don't you share what happened for you when we did that prayer time? 

Yeah.

So the Lord led me to an age when I was 16.

And really my childhood was up to age 16.

Things didn't seem to shift and change in my faith journey.

And I was, I guess I was straddling the lines of my faith where I would live in the world, but then I would go and go to church too.

And so at 16, I started making poor choices about my life and it affected pretty much everything.

And so from 16 to 23, those eight years of my life were pretty dark.

And you, you as my husband already knew my story, but as you listened, you, you just asked me to walk into those moments and I was petrified to enter into those experiences again.

And so, gosh, God is so gracious and gentle.

And actually what he did was he allowed me in my mind's eye to see all the different ages of myself from ages 16 to 23.

And I stood back as a grown woman, you know, 38 years old at the time.

And I stood back with Jesus and we just looked at those different ages of myself.

And, um, we, Jesus says, what do I do with you? 

What do I do with you? 

And he, and so he goes, tell these girls these different ages of yourself, Megan, what I do with you.

And so he and I ministered to these different versions of myself.

And as we did all the lies, all the garbage, all the choices that were made were basically wiped away with his like love and his truth.

And he didn't, and I think I want to make sure that people are hearing is you didn't have to go through each and every dark little secret, right? 

No, I didn't.

And actually what happened in my mind's eye is that I saw us all just kind of hug each other.

And as we were hugging each other, there was like this, this love that literally washed it away.

And then, um, after that you started calling out any, um, demonic force that had come against me in those traumas.

And, um, it just started fleeing left and right.

The one that surprised me the most was a spirit of death.

Um, I don't know that I realized that that was an issue in my life, but actually it was because at 23, um, I think my lifestyle, um, the choices I was making caught up with me and, um, I got pregnant at 23 and I was a Baylor girl, a Baptist Baylor girl.

And, um, it just, my life's trajectory was to be a speech pathologist, not be an unwed mother.

And, um, there's a lot of shame and insecurity and, um, just not wanting to live in those, those, that season of my life.

And so as you called out a spirit of death, I literally felt that leave me in a way that made me feel so light, like literally like something that was holding me back, holding me down, had just lifted off of me.

And as I felt that I felt empowered by the power of the Holy Spirit, like I've never felt before.

And you, and I want to point this out real quick.

If I can interrupt, you were not a heavy person, like, like to look at you and to talk to you in that season of life, I would not have said to you that something is holding you back.

Right.

Right.

These were things that were kind of like low level hums in the background that were there until then they were identified.

Now it's like, wait, what? 

Yeah.

And that spirit of death, um, it came in weird ways.

Like it would attack me at night in my sleep and it would give me like graphic dreams of having an abortion that I never had.

Or it would make me think things that I never had thought before, like hopelessness would come and it'd be like the hopelessness would say, you're never going to be a speech pathologist.

So you should just die.

Like things that I would believe.

Um, and so as I experienced that freedom though, and that spirit of death left, and I felt that, um, the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit filled me and I was like, honey, we need to pray.

We need to pray for hope.

So my daughter hope was 11 at the time.

And I just, I really felt this strong urge that we needed to pray over her being knit together in my womb.

And hope was mature for an 11 year old.

And she had the ability to understand, um, just spiritual warfare and the basics of that.

And so we prayed over her and, um, we, we told her to visualize God creating her and choosing that one sperm and that one egg to create her.

And, um, she couldn't, she couldn't see God creating her because all she could, she kept hearing in her head and saying out loud was I'm not wanted.

I'm not wanted.

I'm not wanted over and over and over.

And it was, she never heard that.

No, my mom and dad and brother and sisters, we all raised her until you and I met when, when she was five.

So no, that was not her truth, but something inside of her was there kind of putting that in her head.

Yeah.

And so I renounced anything I had placed on her in the womb, you know, having an unwanted pregnancy.

There's that truth that you don't want that.

Um, but the enemy was lying to her cause she was so deeply cherished and wanted.

And so I renounced any of that and asked her for forgiveness.

And then, um, she was filled with the Holy Spirit as well.

And she started praying over a friend that night.

Oh, my gosh.

Crazy powerful.

And it's never been the same sense.

So to see her now almost 19 and set free to live in the fullness of Jesus and her identity, it's just the most beautiful thing to see.

I love it.

So this is our story.

This is, and this specifically is why EverFree started because we, as card carrying evangelical, good Christian people had no idea that we were not fully free in our bondage.

Uh, our theology said that we're free in Christ.

Uh, our thinking said that we are free in Christ are, but our, our, our realistic world, it's one thing to have a theology, which is kind of can land only in your head at times.

And, and then a practical reality of where we really living in freedom or not.

And, and to live in freedom is to not live without pain.

It's not to live without brokenness.

I'm not, we're not saying that perfection and is like one prayer away for you or for me or for Megan.

But we are saying is it is a, it is a need to confront in, in the evangelical Western church that the enemy is a real factor.

It's, it's affecting our churches.

It's affecting our pastors and leaders.

I read an article yesterday about a pastor who is struggling from anxiety and depression and preached a sermon about depression and then 10 days later killed himself.

So sad.

And I was heartbroken for the church and the family.

And, and I have no idea that what was going on in his life, mental health is a very real thing.

And we need to debunk that mystery of mental health in the church as well.

The church needs to talk about mental health, but I also couldn't help but wonder if there was something other than tormenting him alongside his mental health issues that made those mental health issues bigger than they needed to be.

For me, I was doing everything that was required in my struggle.

I had an ongoing temptation struggle.

Megan didn't have an outward sin problem from her torment.

It was a mentality thing.

It was a freedom thing, but I had a, I had a literal thing.

There was a thing that would happen.

I would yield to sin.

And Kraft talked about it this way.

He affirms counseling, as we do, and he said counseling is wonderful because it is a way of training the brain to think.

And that's that hole to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that scripture, that good counseling, good psychiatry helps you train your mind in proper ways of thinking.

Keith Peter still has thinking thinking that I got to work out.

And that will be something I work on to the day I die is how do I think of myself and how does the scripture inform that and how do I take on the mind of Christ.

But if I am not paying attention to the spiritual, what I can't get a mental health provider is spiritual warfare, freedom.

And if I'm ignoring the fact that the enemy might be tormenting me, if I got a voice inside my head that's not schizophrenia, but the enemy telling me how stupid I am, reminding me of God you're broken.

And see for me the enemy had taken some good theology and twisted it.

Am I a sinner? 

Am I a sinner in need of grace? 

Yes, I am.

Did Paul have a thorn in his flesh? 

Yes, he did.

But I had taken on my theology of needing a savior, my theology of Paul's thorn, and I had succumbed to the idea that I would never be rid of this incessant pornography torment.

And I bought that lie and that was a lie straight from the pit of hell.

That was the enemy planting that lie in my hand.

That's bondage.

That is the bondage.

Yeah.

And so here I was and Kraft calls it like fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

Right.

I was getting good counseling, both from a professional counselor, mental health provider, as well as pastoral counseling about this issue in my life.

But I wasn't able to find off what was really the root of it.

And by going back and finding the root of that brokenness and seeing Jesus heal it, that's where the chain was broken for real.

And I remember coming home and praying with you and having my own experience and thinking to myself, I knew Jesus was real before this, but oh my gosh.

We were experiencing this freedom.

Jesus can heal.

Yeah.

And it was an inner healing.

That's why we call this inner healing prayer.

We do this prayer process is inner healing.

It's healing the things from within the wounds, the brokenness, all that stuff.

And I, I would, my mind was blown and I felt like a completely different person.

And, and from that day, that's where we started and we started, started sharing our testimony and, and that was the next step of the ever free journey.

And as we were missionaries that, that neighborhood, we started praying for our people on our team and other people.

And next thing you know, it's becoming like a very important part of what we do.

So we're going to wrap our episode number three up right here.

Again, season one of all, this is our story and our background.

Where did ever free start from? 

And we're so glad.

Thank you for sharing and listening in on our family and our conversation.

If you have any questions, our email addresses are Keith at ever free.

us or Megan at ever free.

us shoot us an email.

We'd love to answer any of the questions you might have or just engage you in further conversation.

Hope you're having a great day.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you at the next episode.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Thanks for listening today.

You can find us on the web at everfree.us.

And while you're there, you can sign up for a prayer appointment or sign up for training and become one of our prayer or financial partners.

Sign up today and help support our ministry.

Also head on over to iTunes to leave us a review and share this episode with a friend.

There are links and notes in today's podcast to help you connect to the message.

Hope to see you soon.