When What We’ve Seen Paralyzes Our Faith

We are spiritual beings with a soul, housed in a body. This truth is very important to understanding our identity as God’s children. So many people are struggling today because they have no clear sense of purpose; they don’t truly know who they are. Life feels like a maze they keep walking through, but never quite figure out. One of the main reasons is this: there’s more attention on the outward life than on the inward condition of the soul. But as God’s spiritual children, we’re called to nourish our souls with His Word. That’s what strengthens us. That’s what causes our inner life to grow and expand in the love of Christ.

When His love is alive in us, it produces real power—the kind of life God desires for us to walk in. But many of us stay so busy, so occupied with doing, managing, and pushing through, that our souls are left unattended. We don’t give ourselves the time, space, or patience to grow in faith the way we should. And when that becomes our pattern, spiritual weakness follows. We end up malnourished in the very place that needs to be strengthened. That is not how God called us to live. We are to guard our souls, nourish them with what is true, and grow strong in Him from the inside out.

1Thessalonians 5:23(NLT) tells us, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Most of us rarely think about how we’re functioning internally. We get up in the morning, do our grooming routines, and out we go, but in 1Thessalonians 5:23, our Heavenly Father calls our attention to the reality that we have a spirit, a soul, and a body, all three have different functions that work together beautifully when our minds and hearts are spiritually in the right place.

The Mind

Even in our mother’s wombs, our brains are absorbing information, and once we’re born, our minds are like a sponge. There’s nothing that you and I see or have seen throughout our entire lives that isn’t recorded in our brains and cataloged in a place within that most of us never tap. This knowledge about the mind is very instrumental in helping us understand the passage in Romans 8:5-8(NIV). It says, “5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

Living in the flesh is living with no regard for the care of the human spirit and human soul through the nourishment of God’s Word. It is a mind that is chiefly occupied with pleasuring the body, and that is not how God created us to live. We are to live by the Spirit. Through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has rescued us from living by the flesh. Romans 8:11 (The Message) tells us, “When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

Because of Christ, God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, lives inside us, and the Spirit empowers us to live successfully, without sin. However, our minds are not always onboard with that. There’s a war going on inside us. The Spirit is leading us to do what God wants, but the mind is wanting to satisfy the flesh. We are the ones who determine who will win this war within.

1John 5:4(NLT) says, “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.” Jesus Christ has already won the victory for us. He won the victory over sin and death, and the way that we walk in his victory every day of our lives is to have faith in all that God accomplished for us through His only begotten Son. Well, how do you have faith? First, you must understand that faith is a mind thing. If you’re incapable of thinking, you can’t have faith. So, our minds must be changed, and we are the ones to change them. God tells us in Ephesians 4:23 to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and this means we must change the way we think so that our thoughts line up with the truth of Jesus Christ.

The Heart

Some of us have seen things we were never supposed to see. Some of it happened in childhood, before we had the emotional strength or understanding to process it the right way. We carry memories of abuse… of watching our mothers get hurt by the men who were supposed to love them. We’ve seen men—some even in the church—live in ways that didn’t reflect Christ at all. We’ve seen relationships marked by betrayal, manipulation, and control. We’ve seen women use their bodies to gain attention or validation. Whether it came through real life or what we watched over and over again, those images didn’t just pass through—they settled in. And for some of us, they didn’t just touch our minds… they left an imprint on our hearts.

Only God truly knows the heart, but He still calls us to examine our own. And when we do, we can’t ignore what we’ve been exposed to—because some of it is still shaping how we think, how we feel, and how we respond. Some of what we’ve seen is quietly working against our faith. We’ve watched people we love get hurt, get cheated on, get broken by relationships that didn’t honor God. And somewhere along the way, fear stepped in—but instead of confronting it, we buried it. Now it’s sitting deep, influencing how we see love, how we see ourselves, and even how we see God. And if we’re not careful, those internal narratives will start telling us lies—about who He is, and about who we are in Him.

The Command

The thing that has to come full circle for every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is this—no matter what we’ve seen or lived through, our Redeemer commands us to have faith in God. You can’t erase everything you’ve experienced. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. But you are not called to carry it like it still has authority over your life. You’re called to crucify it. Nail it to the cross—and leave it there.

Your past is not greater than God. It doesn’t have the final say, and it cannot compete with what He has already purposed for your future. Faith is the shift. No matter what you or the people you love have been through, faith in God changes everything. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person—the old life is gone; a new life has begun. That’s not symbolic—that’s reality in Christ.

So walk in that truth. Make a decision—settle it in your mind—that your past stays on the cross. Jesus already dealt with it there. And now, He’s calling you to live from a different place—one marked by His power, His love, His strength, His joy, and His peace. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“When What We’ve Seen Paralyzes Our Faith”,written for victoryinjesuschrist.life. Copyright© 2026. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.