As we grow through the formative years of childhood, we typically learn various ways of adapting to adversity. Our true self--the one God placed in us from the very beginning--becomes covered over or even lost, and we start functioning from another identity—our false self. The false self can manifest in a multitude of ways: becoming strong and controlling, or perfectionistic and performance-driven, or passive and compliant, and so on. Many of our addictions stem from living o

In counseling, we see people from all walks of life who have a distorted view of God the Father because their parents misrepresented him. It doesn’t matter whether the client is a missionary, pastor, music leader, or doctor of theology. The biggest influence on how a person sees God is not their knowledge of the Scriptures. It is the representation or misrepresentation of God, which that person saw mirrored by their parents. God makes us totally dependent on parents or caregi