Some of us belong in prison for the things we have done. Many of us have not been caught and consider ourselves blessed to have gotten away with it. Some of us have rationalized why we did wrong and now think of ourselves as justified. We construct elaborate fabrications, a fortress of lies, leading to a life of delusion. Too many Christians exist in a dull and even numb boredom, with less than the faith symbolized by the tiny mustard seed. Neither growing nor receiving much comfort. We must do the thing the Spirit is calling us to do. First, we must confess. Do you want excitement? Confess your sins, to God, to whomever in the world He leads you to confess. God can give us the courage to face our greatest fear. Tear down the walls of denial. What we hide from ourselves, He already knows. We are the villains in a corrupt and perverted world. We must burn the bridge to self-righteousness behind us and surrender to His mercy and grace, before we can live with the truth about ourselves. Then with nothing left to hide, the Lord can use the truth He has liberated us to tell, in the conviction and healing of many.
In prison tonight, one man graduating from a Christian discipleship program gave a testimony that when he entered the prison system, he was a practicing pagan worshipping Norse gods and still dealing drugs while incarcerated. In order to obtain access to certain area on the other side of the prison yard, he had to request to go to a church service. While in the first service, the pastor said something that affected him, “not even a drop of water rolls across a leaf without God knowing it”. He began to come to church regularly. He eventually burned his books on paganism and gave his life to Christ.
“in postulating a universal Oedipus complex as the origin of all our neuroses, Freud inadvertently developed a straightforward rationale for understanding the wish-fulfilling origin of the rejection of God. After all, the Oedipus complex is unconscious, it is established in childhood, and above all its dominant motive is hatred of the father (God) and the desire for him not to exist, something represented by the boy’s desire to overthrow or kill the father. Freud regularly described God as a psychological equivalent to the father, and so a natural expression of oedipal motivation would be powerful, unconscious desires for the nonexistence of God. Therefore, in the Freudian framework, atheism is an illusion caused by the oedipal desire to kill the father (God) and replace him with oneself. To act as though God does not exist reveals a wish to kill him, much in the same way as in a dream the image of a parent going away or disappearing can represent such a wish. The claim by Nietzshe that “God is dead. . . . And we have killed him”, therefore, is simply an oedipal wish-fulfillment—the sign of seriously unresolved unconscious motivation.21”
Paul C. Vitz, PhD psychology
Emeritus Professor of psychology at New York University
Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism