The Truth Will Set You Free, no it won't...

I recently experienced how much our minds can affect our physical bodies in ways I had not experienced in quite some time. How is it that when we are feeling stressed and have such anxiety that we feel it more in the physical aspect of our bodies than we actually do in the mental aspect of our or minds. As a problem solver, I still find that so very strange; how our mental state has so much effect on our physical state. Imagine if your brain actually hurt as much as your body hurts when you are feeling stress, anxiety, suffer a loss, experience a heartache, or a major disappointment. We would have a migraine for months and maybe years on end. I am not so sure many people would be able to endure the pain as much if our actual brains hurt rather than our bodies; I surely would not. I think most everyone that has ever experienced any type of devastating mental anguish has looked for ways to relieve their pain as quickly as possible. When we experience mental anguish we suffer from rapid heart rate, palpitations, fatigue, lack of energy, pain in the stomach, lack of appetite, sleepless nights that causes all sorts of pain in our bodies. All these physical symptoms brought on by our minds is so intriguing to me, so I sat out to solve this problem; at least solve what was causing me such anguish.

????Let me take you back a few years first (actually about 40 years). I met a young girl at school and I instantly fell head over heels for her. I held hands with a girl for the first time and it was amazing how she made me feel. We were “going together” for the next several weeks and I thought things were perfect; we even kissed on the lips! Things could not be better in my life at that time. One evening I got a call from a friend of hers telling me that she was breaking up with me. Back then, being kids, our form of communication was either by note or use your best friend to deliver the message. Remember the “do you like me, check yes or no” notes? Well, that’s how long ago this story goes back. Anyway, her friend had delivered a devastating message, she was breaking up with me. I was shocked, but just said OK and hung up the phone. I remember going outside and laying on the hood of my Fathers car and just thinking about what just happened, and my stomach began to hurt as if I had eaten something really bad. I remember thinking, why is my stomach aching over something that a girl did to me. At the time, it made absolutely no sense to me at all. Later, my Mom figured out what had happened and sat down and explained the reason my stomach was hurting was that my heart had just been broken. That blew my mind! I thought there is no way some girl can make my stomach hurt like this, yet the pain was unbearable at the time and it was reality even if I could not totally understand it. Just like touching a hot stove, I learned my lesson about girls at a very young age and was bound and determined to never have my stomach hurt like that ever again; oh, I mean have my heart broken again. To me, I did not care about my heart getting broken. The pain I had vowed to avoid was the pain it caused to my stomach; that was the pain I could actually feel.

????I eventually got over the pain of that horrible break up, it probably took at least the end of the next school day before I totally recovered, but none-the-less I made a full recovery. Today, as adults, it’s not that easy, and it is surely not that quick to get through a mental tragedy. It seems the longer we are vested in something the harder it is to get over it. I’m sure there is some scientist working on the formula to determine how long it takes to get over a tragedy, but for now we just get through it as quickly as possible.

????Like I said, I sat out to solve the problem of my pain, my anxiety, my sleepless nights, and the hurt in my stomach like I had never felt before. I will not go into the details of where all this pain was deriving from but I will say that it came from a devastating break up from a very long-term marriage to the love of my life. I was falsely accused of some of the most horrendous atrocities a man of integrity could ever be accused of, and none of which were remotely true. I exhausted all possible means to exonerate myself, yet nothing would gratify her need to destroy. Ladies out there, a man’s integrity is his heritage. He works to establish his integrity his entire life. When he offers his hand and makes a deal and says “trust me”, that’s his word; and a man that has good integrity will die before he breaks his word. That’s what I mean when I say my integrity was assaulted; my lifelong heritage was destroyed (in her eyes). There is no way possible a man of integrity can be in a relationship with a person that constantly dishonors his heritage he worked a lifetime to build; it’s just not possible. So, now I would like to share how I got through all the pain. This pain I suffered with for almost a year was devastating and caused me to do anything and everything I could think of to alleviate it. I tried every method I knew how to try. I spent hours watching motivational videos on youtube, consulted with a counselor for months, took medication (prescription from a Doctor), dove deeper than I ever have in my religion, and yes, drank more than I should have on more than one occasion to sooth the pain in my physical body that my mind was creating. None of the methods I tried solved my problem, they only soothed the symptoms I had for a short period, then the disease of the broken heart would return and my physical symptoms would become intense again. I needed to cure this disease if I wanted my physical symptoms to be resolved, not just temporarily pacified.

????I started my research like most would do, ask Google. I searched for cures for my broken heart, I searched for methods to relieve my anxiety, I searched for methods to control my thoughts. On my journey for knowledge, I found very interesting concepts that I was sure would work. The spiritual Gurus suggest meditation, the physical fitness connoisseurs suggest intensive workouts that would exhaust your body and clear your mind, the spiritual thinkers (not religious, but spiritual) enthusiasts suggest yoga, and the narcissist hunters suggest a complete change of your entire way of life to escape the one that has caused your pain. These may work for some, but none of these methods worked for me long-term. They were all just temporary patches to get me through another day. One day when I was at my worst, a friend of mine I have known for 15 years, out of the blue sends me a Bible verse. Just two minutes before he sent me this text I was praying for God to take away all my pain, and was screaming at God asking if He was listening. I figured all else has failed so why not scream at God and ask if He is actually listening to me, or even cares about me and my pain. Now to appreciate this you would have to know our friendship. Neither one of us had ever shared with the other about our religious beliefs, and neither one of us had ever sent the other a Bible verse for sure. We both knew that the other was a good man and that both of us more than likely had a spiritual connection, but it was never really confirmed or talked about too much over our 15-year relationship. He lives in NC and I live in TN so we do not get to spend allot of time with each other so we never really found the time to share our beliefs with each other. After my prayer and screaming for answers, two minutes later I receive this verse from one of the most unlikely people I would ever expect to send me a Bible verse (I mean no offense Allen, Love you man!). The verse he sent me was: “For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish” (Jeremiah 31:25 ESV). I’ll be honest, I was in shock, in awe, in amazement that I was told by God that He heard me, and gave me my answer. It came from such an unlikely source that there was no doubt, where it actually came from. I could not even speak for a while, I had to sit down and I immediately acknowledged that “I got your message God, thank you for listening and letting me know that You will replenish my soul”. It was such an amazing feeling that my pain evaporated into thin air. All the stomach aching gone, the trembles and shakes gone, the feeling of emptiness inside me gone, the feeling of having no control what so ever, gone. This was the cure I had been looking for all this time. For almost a year of my life on a quest to find the cure, it came in the form of a text from a person I never would have thought would deliver such a message to me, yet it was clear. I thought WOW, not only can my mind make me feel horrible physically, it can also make me feel incredible and amazing. There is no yoga, meditation, counseling, or drug that I have found that did that for me. This amazing event turned my research focus toward one of the oldest books in the world, the Bible. I figured there had to be many more inspiring messages from God that would lead me toward full recovery. I found that I am not the first person that has gone through such turmoil, and I will not be the last. The Bible is our reference for pretty much anything we are going through. I graduated from a Christian college, and have been a religions person pretty much all my life, but never considered the Bible for more than directions on how to get to Heaven. Turns out, it’s all encompassing when it comes to instructions on how to heal your mind so you can heal your body as well (and so much more). So, I engulfed myself in researching the Bible to find the answers I was seeking. I would always find exactly what I was looking for and the answers I needed, or instructions on what to do. One particular hurt that I could not overcome was the fact that even after my integrity (in her eyes) was destroyed, she continued to find new ways to hurt me. I still cared what she thought about me and did not want her thinking I was the man she had created in her mind. I just knew someday she would come to realize the truth and we would be back in total love with each other once again. Because I loved this woman with all my heart, it was devastating to realize that no matter what I did, what I said, what concrete evidence I presented her, she would never believe anything other than what she had already concluded in her mind. I finally reach a point where I knew we would never have that love for each other again and it was devastating to say the least. I struggled with this for a very long time and it almost destroyed me because I wanted her to know the truth because I wanted her to love me for the man I was and not the man she had fabricated with lies; I so wanted to give my love back to her as well. This was the worst pain I had ever experienced in my entire life, and I would have done anything to relieve it, at pretty much any cost. Imagine being committed of a crime you did not commit and then being sentenced to life in prison where you endured such pain that all you thought about every second of the day was how to relieve the suffering. That is exactly how I felt; I was in prison for something I did not do, or even could do with the heritage I had established with her over the past 30 years and the pain was unbearable. I prayed that God give her clarity, that she find what she is seeking to clear my good name, that she realize the truth about who I really am and not this fabrication of a person she had created in her mind. I ask God a million times, why, why is she doing this to us? Why is she destroying 34 years of marriage over lies she has told herself? Why is this woman not believing in a man that has laid by her side for over 30 years and never allowed harm to come to her? The only thing I kept getting back was: John 8:32 “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. I thought, what does this even mean, this needs to be going to her and not me! She is the one that needs to know the truth and all of this will be resolved. If she only knew the truth we could end our divorce battle, we could rebuild the city within us that was destroyed, we could find each other on the beach like we always said we would do if we ever got separated. This message was not for me so I kept pushing it aside and moving on to the next symptom I was having. Every time I solved another symptom, I was given the same verse, John 8:32. It was becoming quite irritating to be honest and making me upset because it felt like I was being taunted. I would say each time I received it, “Yes God I know, this is what she should be receiving and working on, not me, so why do you keep sending this to me?” ?The problem with my understanding of this verse was the fact that I turned my focus on the last part of it and not the entire meaning of the verse. We have all heard this a million times, “the truth shall set you free”. Finally, after being sent this verse (and message) through many different sources so many times that I had no choice but to investigate it, I realized that I was missing the most important part of the message. I was watching a Pastor by the name of Buddy Ownes on youtube; he is a Pastor at Saddleback Church. I highly encourage everyone to watch his sermons because he is an incredible teacher. In most of his sermons, he brings attention to how the verse is written. Since I pride myself in writing and find it a passion of mine, I became very interested in how he was breaking down a verse even putting focus on the commas. He was explaining that in order to get the entire meaning out of a verse, one must “study” the verse and not just read it (as most of us commonly do). After realizing that maybe I was not truly understanding John 8:32, I went back to it with this new perspective of breaking it down. This was the amazing message I got from it that changed everything about the situation I was going through. The verse is written: Then, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Jesus was saying to the Jews that if they believed and held to His teachings they would really be true disciples. So, the first part of John 8:32, says, THEN, you will KNOW the truth. What is the truth? There are over 7,000 promises God makes in the Bible. Those are the truths. This verse does not mean that when we tell the truth it sets us free. That may be true, but it only sets you free from feeling guilty. So, if I am not guilty of all the false accusations, how can telling the truth set me free? I have been telling the truth and it sure as Hell has not set me free! This was the root cause of my problem, finally I had found it!!! For me, knowing the truth was actually killing me because she would not believe it. I even thought at times to just admit to the false accusations and take my punishment even though I was not guilty of any of them. That would have only caused more destruction in my life so I refused to admit lies. The truth is, God knows the truth and He keeps telling me to quit punishing myself because someone does not believe the truth; as long as I know God knows the truth, nothing else matters. Someone else believing lies, making up their own reality about what they think about you, does not know the truth, therefore the truth cannot set them free. In fact, the lies they believe punishes them far worse than anything you could ever do to them to vindicate yourself. Yes, I’ll freely admit that I wanted God to punish her for calling me a liar and 46 other false accusations she made against me over a 9 month span. That was the source of my pain, HER not knowing the truth, not me knowing the truth. Almost immediately upon finally receiving the message God was giving me about the truth, I was given another verse that put me on the road to recovery from all this pain and tragedy. God gave me another promise, this one can be found in Galatians 5:1. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery”. Incredible! I was given the root cause to my problem and when I finally understood it, I was given the corrective action on how to solve it. Now, as a problem solver, (if you have not read my book, Problem Solving the Solution to the Puzzle, you can find it on Amazon or just Google “Michael Ray Fincher”, sorry, cheap plug here, but I wrote it to help others solve problems), as I was saying, as a problem solver, I understand the structure of how to solve pretty much any type of problem, but this one eluded me for almost a year until I researched the Bible. I’d say that pretty much any root cause to any problem we may have could be found in this very book; and the corrective action found there too.

????Let me close with this my friends. What is your yoke of slavery? What is it that gives you stomach pain, that keeps you up at night, that makes you physically sick, can the truth set you free? Is it because someone is believing lies about you, they really do not know you, are you yoked by your job, your position at work, your relationship with your spouse, your children, your financial situation, your health, your education, or your family situation? What is in your life that you are burdened with that causes the yoke of slavery to be upon you? Quit trying to treat the symptoms that your yoke of slavery is causing you!!! Is it anxiety, fear, uncertainty, depression, over indulging, stomach pain, lack of sleep, lack of the will to even get up in the morning (lack of freedom)? Treating the symptoms will only be temporary; I promise you that and it will not set you free. Try this for me, if you have identified that you do in fact have a yoke of slavery upon you that is causing you physical pain, get to the root cause as quickly as you can. Do this by drilling down as far as you can to get to the actual root cause. Here is exactly what I did to get to the root cause of my problem (using the promises of God and the 5 why method).

God promises in Galatians 5:1. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery”.

Problem Statement: I have severe anxiety and stomach pain almost every minute of the day because I am burdened by a yoke of slavery and I do not feel free, and the truth has not set me free.

Why? – my wife has accused me of horrible things I never did, and it hurts, it burdens my heart;

Why? – I care about what she thinks of me more than anyone on this earth and I need her trust;

Why? – I have worked a lifetime to earn her trust, yet I can’t force her to trust me;

Why? – Her trusting me is out of my control and her truth is her choice to make;

Why? – because the truth she believes cannot set her free, and that burden is not my yoke of slavery to suffer, to fix, or a problem I can solve. ?

So my friends, in order to put in an effective corrective action that will cure the disease and address your symptoms, you must get to the root cause. Once we have reached the root cause, you will be able to clearly see the disease that is causing all of your other symptoms. You will then need to determine the most effective corrective actions you can implement to solve your problem. Quite often you will realize that some of your root causes will be totally out of your control to correct. For example, in my case if I had a magic wand and could wave it over her head and make her believe the real truth, my problem would be solved. Unfortunately, there is no such tool that exist to make that corrective action. In this case, we must focus on actions that we can take that are within our control to implement. In my case, Divorce solved the problem; elimination of the root cause which is always the most effective method. I’m not saying go out and get a divorce, I’m saying if you can totally eliminate the possibility of the problem from ever occurring again, it is always the most effective. After a year of trying to convince her of the real truth, all other attempts of corrective action had failed so there was no other option for me if I wanted to eliminate my anguish that caused such physical pain to be upon me. So, focus your attention on the things that YOU can control, even if it means you have to resort to extreme measures. Don’t just jump to the most extreme first, try those actions that are the easiest to implement and work your way up to those most extreme if necessary. Sometimes the corrective actions that need to be implemented are at first more hurtful than the symptoms that are caused from the actual root cause you are trying to solve. Remember this though, you can carry around your disease and fight the symptoms for years and years in suffrage or you can go head first into it knowing that the pain may be severe for a while, but the disease will be cured and the symptoms eliminated once and for all.

You will no doubt be able to solve your problems by getting to the root cause, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

God bless all of you! ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????