August 2, 2026
I had an unexpected experience a few weeks ago when I went to my husband, Kevin’s, church for his last Sunday as pastor. During the service, the congregation and Kevin promised to release each other and mark an end of his time in ministry there. The congregation vowed they won’t expect him to serve as their minister any longer. Kevin promised to let go of responsibilities there and support future pastors. Sometimes people tear up at these services of farewell. But Kevin was happy! He loved the congregation, and he would miss the people. But he loved the idea of retirement! He was good. But me? I cried. I could feel this deep deep sadness inside me. I didn’t know why! Because I was happy about Kevin retiring. What was going on?
It took a while to realize I was not upset about Kevin retiring. Instead, I was carrying some sadness and hurt from when my brother died 2 years ago. That was a wound that was in the background of my life. Before he died, Pat was in the hospital with a very fast-growing cancer for a month, and he quickly became very sick. He was determined to never give up, until his last hours. That experience led to a stronghold for me, to something like an evil fortress. It was stealing my peace. And it led to tears two years later at Kevin’s church!
I thought I was over that. Have you ever had that experience?
You think you’ve moved on from a loss or difficult experience. You thought the wound had healed. Then a memory comes back. Or you find yourself feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or unsettled without knowing why. Because sometimes the pain of our past shows up in the present.
Today we’re talking about strongholds and how they can lead us to believe lies about God, ourselves, and others. The lies hold us back. We’ll find out how we can trust God and demolish the power a stronghold has on us.
A stronghold means a strong castle. And we’re talking about an evil stronghold. It’s not out in the open, you may have a stronghold you don’t even know you have. It could be an addiction that is messing up your life, and you say, “I can quit anytime.” But you don’t. You could have a relational stronghold where you’re critical and judgmental. You don’t relate well with your family. You don’t really have any close friends.
A stronghold leaves you feeling powerless and helpless. You want to feel better, but you don’t know how to fix it.
In 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, Paul talks about evil strongholds, and how we get rid of them! He says, “for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” Paul tells us when you have a stronghold, you can’t demolish it on your own. You need a different weapon! You need divine power; you need some help from God!
Strongholds start with an emotional wound that doesn’t heal. Marcus Warner is president of Deeper Walk International. He says when he grew up, his parents were good parents. But one thing they were awful with was emotions. So, he, as a kid, became the emotional grown up to his parents, who were immature. Later, as an adult, he had to work through a stronghold he experienced, the difficulty of having parents who couldn’t be compassionate and understanding.
It could be that your parents were alcoholics, and in elementary school you had to not only make sure you got up and got ready for school, but sometimes you had to get groceries, or the family would have nothing to eat. That can leave a wound! Because you should never have been handed those grown-up responsibilities.
So, we have wounds. And the wounds lead to lies. We think it’s my fault my parents drink. I should fix them. And we make vows, “I’ll take care of everything so they will get better.” We believe lies about God: “God has deserted me or abandoned me. He wasn’t there for me. I can’t trust God.” That’s what feels true. It may feel like, in this wounded area you can’t trust God, but in other areas of your life, you can. In the wounded area, you might experience God in a fearful way. But in other areas, you love God.
The wound leads you to believe lies, which leads to a stronghold. The stronghold is something you get stuck in. You can’t move past the pain.
So, you pray, “God, take this away. Please Lord, make the pain stop.” But it takes something more. You need to investigate your stronghold, ask yourself some questions about what hurts. You probably spend a lot of effort protecting your stronghold and not letting people know about your hurt. So, it might feel uncomfortable to look more deeply at your feelings about it.
Jesus, when he was resurrected, still had wounds from when he was crucified. When Thomas doubted that Jesus really rose from the dead, Jesus said to Thomas, “Reach out your hand and put it into my side.” Jesus was not hiding his wound. He was inviting Thomas to touch it! Jesus shows us It’s ok to have wounds and to admit you have them! When we stop hiding them, they lose some of their power. We can bring our wounds to Jesus! He had wounds too!
Marcus Warner offers a four-step prayer process for breaking strongholds. He calls it the REAL Prayer. He wrote a book called R.E.A.L. Prayer, where he teaches a way of praying through painful memories. REAL stands for Remember, Explore, Ask and Look.
First, R: you remember a memory or a wound you experienced.
Second you E: Explore it. You pray, God, what do you want me to remember about this? You explore what started feeling true to you after this event? For example, after this event, I felt “I’m all alone in this world. God is not there for me.” Ask yourself, how true does that feel for me?
Third is A: Ask. Jesus I ask you Jesus, something about this.
Fourth is L: Look at the memory, the wound, and see if anything changed. Do I feel different? Do I have new thoughts? Do I see Jesus there with my memory, where I didn’t see him before? Do you sense him saying something, like it wasn’t your fault. Or You’re going to be ok.
My challenge for you this week is to consider a wound you have that led to a stronghold. Bring that wound to God. Jesus invited Thomas to touch his wounds and explore them. Jesus said, “Put your hand in my side.” Jesus would enter your wounded experience.
Sometimes life breaks us. If we think God doesn’t care, is that really true? Have we taken our hurt to God? There are lies we believe about ourselves, God and others. Like “I should have done more.” “Nobody cares about me.” Or “God has forgotten me.” You can invite Jesus to take a look at your wound. God loves and cares for you. He can help you release the hurts of the past and demolish your stronghold, when you take a chance and invite him into the wounded places of your heart. Amen.
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