Blue101

I recently completed my Walls assessment and was somewhat surprised to find that according to this assessment I am dealing with the Wall of Isolation. The assessment names eight such Walls that can exist within a given person. A deeper investigation of this finding in the website (www.faithbreakthroughs.com) revealed that there are at least five subcategories within the overall topic of the Wall of Isolation. These subcategories are:

1. The Wall of Isolation - This wall described as one pushing others away intentionally to protect oneself from being hurt in some way (physically, emotionally, economically, etc.). Examining my life I see bits of this in my own experience, however, the difference is that I do not actively push people away.

2. A Wall of Loneliness - This wall is described as one desiring relationships but sense that it is somehow a futile exercise since no real relationship is available to one. I have experienced some aspects of this Wall, especially since my move from Connecticut to Florida. I left behind some of my closest friends and communication now is not what it used to be.

3. The Wall of Prejudice speaks of the biases one has against a given group of people. This Wall does not apply to me.

4. A Wall of Anger described as the fixation a person has on the faults of others to the extent that you consider yourselves above them. I try to direct my energies to my own faults (Luke 6:41). This way of thinking, (considering oneself above others) is totally opposite to the behavior Christ expects from us (Matthew 18:1-6; Luke 9:46-48).

5. A Wall of Distrust - Described as the condition in which one is unwilling to open up to others for fear of them failing you. I also see some of this in my own life experience.

The assessment offers attributes of God we can use to combat our Walls. In my case, the Wall of Isolation can be contested with the God attribute of love. I know this and rely on God's love to see me through all adverse circumstances I might be going through. His love is demonstrated by the fact that He has delivered me from "the pit of destruction" and has put all my sins behind His back (Isaiah 38:17, NIV). Paul writes that God's love was demonstrated for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8, NIV). Like the hymn says, "When He was on the cross, I was on His mind." He has also provided a "helper" for me. After the act of creation was complete, the Bible says that God-who had proclaimed everything good to that point-saw that it was not good that man be alone. Therefore, God gave me my Gladys to help me and show me that the family unit starts with the godly love of a man and a woman

Blue102

There are a multitude of distorted thinking about ourselves and about God. To truly understand self, to reach the potential and purpose written in our design, the attributes of God must be central focus. Returning to the Source of all truth and understanding is infinitely more effective in understanding personal "walls" than any other subject. Barriers are created and destroyed upon the subject of Who God Is, creating the very paradigm of life, and greatly emphasized by the question posed by Jesus "Who do you say I am?"

When any subject is pursued through a handicap of vision, analysis without information, the conclusion will be a poor representation of the truth. To view the world through despair, there is the distortion of thinking that the bad will reign over circumstances, that the future will unfold into a lack of promise and abundance. Despair is like a pernicious weed in a well groomed garden, choking the other plants until there is no life except its twisted branches. Yes, despair is familiar to the author, growing from a past of negative circumstances, ill health, and surrounded by the manipulation of others, and death. Reasoning will show that depressive realism is accurate more frequently, however, this is when the author did not consider the importance of perspective, viewing all events as generating God's glory. The author did not consider that it is not necessarily the event that causes despair, but the choice of allowing the circumstance to dictate the response of despondency by default. Lack of consideration of the greatness of God's plan, even through death (the death of death through the death of the Messiah as an example), places blinders upon the spirit, inhibits the soul from worship, and casts the eyes of wisdom toward the earthly and not the heavenly places.

Despair, like any wall prohibiting the view of God's magnificence and glory will inevitably lead to a disablement of the family as the primary relationship in the family. Love grows cold with concern that events will end badly, that there is no purpose to suffering, that there is no glory to God through pain. To deny the immanence of God, the decrees that He perfectly orchestrated to overcome death, hell, and the grave, is to deny the future of the family, to eliminate its purpose. Hope is carried away when a mother is terminal, or the body of the father is broken, when a child is driven mad, because there appears no purpose, no end to the pain when there is a lack of meta-narrative purpose and design for the ultimate good. It is not for random and meaningless hope that Paul wrote about the saints being called a "particular people unto His very own" (1Thess.1:14), for to create and possess a people, redeeming them through the Beloved's blood is purpose enough to overcome any suffering the world has to offer.