Are you yearning to be set free? Whether you have been in bondage for a little while or for many, many years, God can set you free. Spiritual bondage, bad habit, shame, guilt—whatever the condition, whether it be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual—God is able to release you in an instant. He did it for me and He can do it for you.
A Bad Tree Takes Root
I used to curse. A lot. Profanity seasoned my language like rancid fruit. And no matter how hard I tried to refrain from cursing, the rotted funk would escape my lips. It was just in me and it came out at will.
Yeshua said in Matthew 12:33-34, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” When I began to read the Bible, that verse pierced my heart every time.
I have a defining moment in my life when I know that cursing took root in me. I was seven years old and in the second grade. It was early in the school year. I was arguing with a red-headed classmate named Floyd and I told him that I would beat his a__ if he messed with me. My teacher, whom I adored, overheard our argument and my threat, and she thought it was hilarious to hear me curse. Instead of paddling me or sending a note home with me so that my mother could deal with me—this was in the 70’s (I know I’m dating myself) when physical discipline was acceptable and legal in school and at home—she laughed.
Growing Bad Fruit
She had always loved the way I spoke. Although I was born and raised in the deep south, Alabama, I didn’t have a southern accent. And because my mother was a stickler for good grammar, I also spoke well for someone my age. She said I talked “proper.” And it sent her into a belly laugh when she heard me curse in my “proper” manner of speaking.
Of course—and unfortunately—that response from my beloved teacher gave me the impression that I could find even more favor in her eyes if I cursed. She would create situations between my fellow students and me and encourage me to “cuss them out.” And when I did, she would laugh so hard that tears would come from her eyes.
So, from that fall until late spring of my second-grade year, my teacher would set up the target, and I’d hit the mark with the arrow of my sharp tongue. And she thought I was so funny.
Until.
Until I cursed out an adult.
Rotted Fruit Falls from Favor
Toward the end of the school year, a beautiful, steel-blue haired, elderly lady named Mrs. Youngblood was our substitute teacher for a day. Apparently, I had distinguished myself in her eyes—but in a good way. She, too, was impressed with my speaking ability and how smart I was. This sweet woman told some other teachers about me and sent another classmate, Lisa, to bring me to her so she could show them the child she was bragging about. Instead of going with Lisa, I told her to tell that beautiful, steel-blue haired, elderly lady to “Kiss my a__.” (This still makes me cry.)
Lisa stood there stunned. She told me again that Mrs. Youngblood had sent her to bring me to her because she was telling some teachers how smart I was. I repeated my message back to Lisa to be delivered to Mrs. Youngblood. And Lisa went and told her what I said.
I still remember the shock and hurt and disappointment on Mrs. Youngblood’s face as she came to me and asked me if I had said what Lisa told her. And I confessed that it was true. Mrs. Youngblood never spoke to me again. She reported me to my regular teacher by leaving a note detailing the encounter.
When my teacher returned, her whole attitude toward me changed. I was no longer a “proper” talking, cursing comedian. I was just a bad child. She paddled me and sent me home with a note telling my mother what I had done. My mother whipped me too.
But the damage had been done; the seed of profanity had taken root and it became a big plant that continued to produce rancid fruit in me for almost the next thirty years of my life.
Crying Out from My Heart to be Set Free
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I was set free from that evil condition. I had been reading the Bible for a few years and during one of my sessions, I was reading the book of James. (I love how God can give you “eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to understand” {Isaiah 6:10/Matthew 13:13} even after you have been reading His Word for some time.) And I read James 3:9-12: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praises and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
For the first time, I cried out from my heart to God: “Lord, help me! I can’t do this without you. I know your word is true. And I want to stop cursing.” And I felt a literal shift in my heart and a fog clear from my mind. I knew something miraculous had happened. I cried, but this time—this time—these were tears of joy. Of release. Of freedom. The shame, the guilt, the bondage: all gone!
Set Free to Produce Good Fruit
And since that day, I have been set free. I no longer curse; profanity doesn’t enter my mind. Curse words sound foreign to me and they hit my ears like bombs. My nostrils flare when I smell the rancid fruit of profanity. I am still amazed. And this too still makes me cry.
I offer this message of truth and hope to anyone who is struggling to be set free from any condition. “[Our God] is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20). Whatever you are going through, no matter how long it has been, regardless of how hopeless it seems, no matter what you have tried before, God is able to set you free.
God pulled up all the roots from that bad tree and He destroyed the bad fruit that it produced. He changed my heart from stone to flesh so that He could plant His seed in my heart. He gave me His Spirit to ensure that a bad tree will never take root in me again. And then he grafted me into The True Vine, His Son, so that the fruit that I produce is pleasing and acceptable to Him.
I have been set free. God did it for me. He can AND WILL do it for you! So, cry out to God right now for your freedom. For it is for freedom that Christ has set us free and you will not be burdened again by that yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).
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Metamorphosis of a Butterfly: My Spiritual Transformation
