Day 1: Demonic Strongholds

In 1 Samuel 16, God sent the prophet Samuel to the father of the next king: Jesse of Bethlehem.

God told the prophet Samuel the person and the geography.

Here is a revelation: You didn't choose your family and you didn't choose where you were born, but God did.

He knew your lineage, what city you would live in, and your last name.

You may hate where you came from, but God gave you your family and He knew you needed it. If it wasn’t the family you wanted, one thing is certain, it was the family that you needed.

If you are facing a toxic family and are wondering why God would allow you to experience this, be encouraged that there’s always purpose hidden in the pain. There's always destiny hidden in the disease and dysfunction.

The Bible encourages us not to despise small beginnings. In fact, the Lord rejoices to see a work begin!

The real question is, are you going to end where God wants you to end? Are you going to allow the conditions of your beginning to push you to where God wants you to end?

This is a hard truth, but your family is not always going to be the ones who tell you who you are called to be.

Oftentimes, your family has a version of you that comforts their version of themselves. They do things that are normal within their own context of reality and they have an idea of who you are.

They may have a culture of lying, cheating, cursing, fighting, addiction, or lukewarmness. As long as you remain like them, then they are comfortable.

As long as David remained the young one in the background, no one had an issue with him. But when you begin to step into your calling, you begin to disturb their definition of who you are to them.

Your elevation consequently becomes their demotion. Your righteousness disturbs their wickedness.

They don't want you to change, not because they don't want you to be better, but because they don't want to be better versions of themselves.

If you have a religious family, they may not want you to advance in the things of God because they don't want to advance in the things of God.

You become an irritant to them because as you advance to new levels in the Spirit, you begin to exploit their resistance to new levels.

It is not that they are hating on you, they are actually hating what you make them feel when you go to higher levels. So, it is not you versus your family, it's your family versus what you elicit in them when you refuse to stay mediocre.

Remember, the battles that we fight are not in this physical realm, it is in the spiritual realm against forces and powers that we cannot see.

We don't have human enemies. Our issues aren’t with our toxic family members, they are actually with the demonic strongholds and patterns that God wants to use you to break off of your bloodline.

It is one thing to understand the reasons behind their harsh behavior, but knowing these things does not negate the reality of what you face because of it.

Over the next few days, I am going to use the life of David to walk you through three main elements of toxicity in the family.

There are roots that the enemy wants you to hold on to so that you perpetuate the same trauma that you have faced to other people and to the people who will be birthed through you.

But the cycles of toxicity and trauma will end with you!