Overcoming Barriers to Connecting with God

The deeper our pain and trauma, the more difficult it can be to connect to God when that pain and trauma are stirred up. We find three major categories of blockages to be at work here.

• Parts so mired in the traumas of our past that they never connected to the relationship we have with God. This can include projection of the image of neglectful or abusive parents onto God, making him feel distant and uncaring.
• Managers who are so heads-down trying to manage problems that they are not aware of God’s presence.
• Christian teachings that present a performance-focused, judgmental God who must be appeased before we are acceptable to him.

We often must address issues such as these before healing prayer tools can be effective. The following is a summary of ministry with Carl, who suffers from significant childhood trauma. Parts of Carl were projecting his childhood image of his father onto God.

Carl: (Not his real name) I have been having some very dark periods of depression. They cause me to be very angry. At times, I feel my anger is delusional, perceiving people as doing things they aren’t doing. Something in me riles up and I lash out, only to find out later that I was wrong. I can’t seem to stop this from happening. I become depressed. My mind gets foggy. I’ll have no energy, no inspiration, and sometimes feel suicidal. I feel like I will never amount to anything. Then my behavior looks like my father’s did before my parents divorced. My anger becomes just as abusive as his, and I start losing touch with reality. (Carl’s language is somewhat broken, disjointed, as if this struggling part is doing the talking from somewhere below the surface.)

Minister: Can you look within these emotions and tell me what kind of perception of God you have from within them?

Carl: I’ve crossed a line with him, made him angry. Besides, he is distant and not interested in me. He doesn’t listen to me or respond to my needs.

Minister. How closely does what you just described about God describe your father?

Carl: Completely.

Minister: Can I have permission to talk to the part of you who feels this way?

Carl: Yes.

Minister: When we are young, we look to our parents for everything—food, shelter, guidance, love … everything. They are our absolute authority and the source of all our provision for living. They are like God to us. This forms our initial image of God. When we are old enough to learn about God, we transfer the image we have of our parents onto God. If our parents did well, it is easy to understand God as patient, tolerant, accepting, and always there to love and help us. But if they didn’t do well, God feels exactly like our parents.

I’ve had my own journey through this process. God had to reparent exiled children in me. I can tell you from personal experience that he knows exactly what happened to each of our inner children and exactly how to address their needs.

I believe he wants you to know that there is no impending judgment or punishment hanging over your head. He knows what happened to the little boy in you who is struggling. He is only interested in seeing him healed. He feels pain for what you went through.

Carl: That is good, but this part feels like it has prayed to him for years, and he hasn’t changed anything. Why pray now?

Minister: You voice sounds different. This sounds like a manager who has been looking for answers for your childhood pain. It sounds like a part of you who has been trying to figure out what to do with these problems.

Carl: Yes, that’s true.

Minister: What does this part of you think about God?

Carl: He thinks that God is good, but he is too slow responding to me. He doesn’t answer my prayers. He does not provide what I need. He stays distant.

Minister: Our manager parts usually feel so alone in their struggles that they function as if there is no one in their life to help them, even God. They may know a lot about God and have expectations of him. But if we peer deeply enough into their inner world, they have often been focused so exclusively on the issue of solving problems that they never entered into a personal connection with God for themselves.

Carl: Yes, that is how this part feels.

Minister: One way to deal with this is to ask the question, “Has this part of you ever had a chance, on his own two feet, to ask Jesus to be a part of his life?” Remember, we want to ask this question from the part of you who is struggling, not from the part of you that already feels you are connected to God.

Carl: He says he does want God, and he wants to ask him into his life.

Minister: There are many ways to do this. Sometimes it is easier to use what is most familiar to us and start with the cross. We can ask him in based on that.

The manager asks the minister to lead him in the prayer. This is common. So we go through a basic prayer, acknowledging what Jesus did on the cross and why, and asking Jesus into the life of the manager. Carl sits for a couple of minutes, concentrating deeply within himself, processing what happened.

Carl: I don’t feel alone anymore. I feel peace. I feel accepted, like I have someone to walk with me through this.

Minister: Look back at the incident that made you angry the other day and tell me what bubbles up.

Carl: Nothing. I feel peace.

Note: This encounter reconciled a manager part who was immediately taking charge when an exile was triggered. The exile’s wounds were deep and sensitive. Therefore, the manager was becoming active in a reflex response anytime Carl would get close to this wound.

Deep wounds like these always have multiple parts connected to them, and there is still more healing to do. Now that the manager is calm, he is not dominating Carl’s mind. The door is open to access the wounded inner child and work on the wounds that have been triggering Carl so deeply.