For someone to truly “get over” a wound, the imprint has to change. In Dead Dogs on the Highway (available on the shop page of effectiveheartchange.com), I compare each festering sore to road kill on the highway of our spiritual makeup. How do we get rid of the stench? There are three “moving parts” in a negative imprint: the one who has been wounded, the one doing the wounding, and God. Changing the way a person sees one or all three of the above is needed for the imprin

In today’s culture, the title “Good Judgment” is considered an oxymoron. The words “good” and “judgment” cannot be used in the same context—which, of course, is ridiculous. To have the opinion that good judgment is an oxymoron is a judgment! What has become popular is the idea of “How dare you say I am wrong!” The tirade against judgment is actually saying, “I want to be able to do whatever I choose, and you have no right to have any opinion about my choices.” There is nat

Linda’s dad left when she was two. Her mom was shot and killed when she was sixteen. To help Linda (not her real name) get better, it would make sense that those two incidents would require a great amount of prayer. But that is not how it works. We can only be hurt by what we care about. Every person’s pain will come out of who he is—what he cares about at a deep level. That means that everyone’s pain is different. It also means that the pain a person feels will have a

Almost everyone I know talks about “rock bottom.” The idea that a person needs to hit some kind of extreme low to get better is extremely overrated. For most people, the deeper driver of their insanity is insecurity. The solution for insecurity is for a person to trust someone who will sow a sense of value into him. Rock bottom can cause a person to reach out for help and if the right person(s) is there, it can lead to a turn around. But the solution is not the crash but

Effective prayer happens when the legal requirements are met and there is the kind of spiritual connection that leads to transfer to God and back from God to those who have prayed. In the New Living Translation, Psalm 86:10 says, “Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed.” Love is experience. It is connection. Truth is the legal side. Righteousness is the legal side. Peace is the experience that comes out of spiritual connection.

While I was driving recently, the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme came to my mind. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again. For those who now have no idea who Humpty Dumpty was, he was a character portrayed as an egg. When he fell off the wall he obviously broke into many pieces and couldn’t be put back together again. If you still need to know more…”Google it”! I remember think