AM: I’ve been working with people who are struggling in their relationships. Is judgment the biggest open door for them? 

Betty: It depends on the person. For some people, revenge and getting even is very important to their family systems. They have to let go of that. That’s very hard for them to let go of, because they’re convicted it’s the way to change the person. They think, “You have to hurt them like they hurt you.” Satan has been at this for centuries, so he’s got a whole setup that he succeeds with in keeping people caught in his prisons. It’s because they believe his nonsense. 

Look for any open doors, anything that doesn’t speak to truth. That is what is keeping them back from the healing power of Jesus having an effect on their lives. They get caught in the games. Yet, they’ll try to tell you, “Oh no, I’m doing everything, etc.” But then, when they start talking about what’s going on in their life, they just want to see their spouses suffer like they suffer. That is showing me Jesus wants them to pray for their spouse’s greater freedom. But you see, the more you listen to hurting people, the more you see these games that they’re playing. 

You want to be careful not to give people who want to be a victim a way to continue the falsehood of victimhood. So, you don’t want to use the name of Satan too much. Because it becomes too easy for them to latch onto “The devil made me do it.” We are prone to grab on to shifting responsibility over to somebody else. That is part of the fallen human nature. So, that’s why the church doesn’t talk a lot about the devil. Because people will use that as an excuse for their own corruption. 

You want the person to be aware. What door could possibly have gotten open here thru which this problem is being enhanced? Also, look if there’s anybody in the family who has been misled by Satan to believe that they will feel better if they make somebody suffer. Plead for God to intervene that that person give up that false belief. You can pray for that. See the key I discovered in healing was that Jesus cannot be false to himself. As it says in scripture, “I cannot pay homage to false idols.” It goes against the honesty and the purity of God. He cannot do evil. God is all good. So, people throw blocks to their own healing when they want to keep the ways of Satan and at the same time receive healing. People can pray until they’re blue in the face, but if they don’t give up the ways of Satan, to what purpose is it? So, a lot of the work of healing is really to encourage people into the conversion of heart that God is asking of them. They often come to us so hurt. But what they want is for God to get even with that person who hurt them. 

AM: Sometimes it’s unconscious in them. They really think they’re coming to God.

Betty: Right, but when you get that insight then you know you have to help them to face the doors they have locked to healing. Those choices they made is why God can’t heal them. Even though they come to you saying, “Why doesn’t God heal me. I prayed.” They’re praying that God would strike their enemy down, and let them get what they got. I mean it’s like, “Come on, lady.” Basically, they really don’t really know who God is. That’s what they’re really telling you. 

AM: As we do that work, then often God is going to work on the other person’s heart. And they may have to look at the doors they haven’t opened and closed. Once we get more cleaned up, then doesn’t it free them up to do the work they need to do?

Betty: Sure, it does. Remember the famous thing I shared at workshops. The lady that came in and told me, “Look every week I come in and I do all this work with you, and my husband’s home on the couch watching TV and drinking beer, and he’s changing. It’s not fair.” Well, you know what’s taking place. She’s dropping some of her heavy negative judgments that she used to put on him. She’s letting go of her desire for him to have evil happen to him. As all of these things are dropping away, then sure, her husband’s changing. Because she was part of the problem. 

The negative judgments she was throwing on him was part of the reason he was the way he was. See, this is why your so called “good people” take a while to be able to handle the fact that they’re a part of the problem. It’s the Pharisee who says, “I thank you God that I am not like the rest of men who are liars, thieves,…” (Luke 18:11)