Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Dr. Jim Richards and I am interviewing him on this book. And you know every once and awhile a book crosses your hands that’ll change your life. I mean dramatically change your life. This is one of them. The book’s title is “How to Stop the Pain.” And you know Jim I believe that there are a lot of people with pain that have stuffed it so deep that they don’t even know… they’re out of touch with the fact that they have this pain. And they have this kind of a passive aggressive is that the right terminology behavior where out of the blue they’ll do something aggressive at you and they’re not even in touch with their pain.
Jim: Oh, most people are and you’re exactly right. We bury our pain because at the time it happens we don’t know how to deal with it.
Sid: And so that’s why when I read the title “How to Stop the Pain.” And someone would say “I don’t have any pain.” And they’re suffering so badly they don’t know what’s going to hit them. I mean that’s the worst kind of pain.
Jim: That’s right.
Sid: When it’s so deep that you’re not in touch with it.
Jim: That’s right and it will drive your life with you having little awareness of why you’re acting the way you’re acting or you’re doing the thing that you’re doing.
Sid: Now on yesterday’s broadcast we were talking about your daughters. My goodness you have, did you say 5 daughters?
Jim: Five daughters and 10 grandchildren.
Sid: Five daughters that must have been quite a household. (Laughing)
Jim: That was a journey that you just cannot believe. (Laughing)
Sid: (Laughing) but you had a problem with your daughters.
Jim: Two of my daughters that just infuriated me. I went through such guilt and torment I felt condemned you know I would get so angry at them and they really weren’t any worse or doing anything worse than my other daughters were doing. And it wasn’t until I came to understand the power of judging that I realized why their behavior was affecting me. You know we talked about this yesterday a person’s behavior only has the ability to affect you based on the significance you attach to it. Now I’m a pretty direct communicator so… and particularly when I was younger you know this was quite good while back but when I was younger you know I was pretty direct. And if I was in direct with you basically it meant I didn’t want to tell you something or I was manipulating. And as it turned out these two particular daughters that I had the most problems with they were you know they were indirect communicators, they were really kind of touchy feely kind of girls very emotional. Now there was nothing wrong with that, but when they would come to me and want something inside of just coming and saying “Hey dad I want this would you do it or give it to me” which would have been the easiest way to get it. You know they would come and you know they would like to kind of attach emotionally and sit in your lap and kind of hug you and beat around the bush and eventually they would tell you what they wanted. And it would make me so angry. And what I finally realized I was passing a judgment and judgment is when you assumed you knew why they do what they do.
Sid: Why did you feel they were doing it?
Jim: Well see you know we judge everybody we project our motives on everybody around us. We assume that people do things for the same reasons that we do. So naturally I would think that you know if I’m indirect that I’m manipulating, that I passed the judgment that says “This is why you’re being indirect.”
Sid: Hm.
Jim: And so it affected me as if they were in fact really trying to judge me or manipulate me and they weren’t. And you know when it was so incredible when I released them from my judgment.
Sid: Excuse me how did you do that?
Jim: You know it’s a prayerful choice. First of all, I had to realize that I was passing a judgment.
Sid: That’s what’s so wonderful about your book. I am realizing what I’m doing so clearly from reading your book but you can’t do anything about it if you’re ignorant that you’re doing something.
Jim: Exactly, and you know most people are not wanting to live a life of judgment. I didn’t want to have you know the destructive relationship that I was having with these 2 daughters. But you know were just the product of what we believed all of our lives and this was an area of renewing my mind nobody has ever taught me I didn’t know I didn’t realize until I had walked this thing through prayerfully with God. In my relationship with God you know God showed me that “You’re judging them.” And you know that when I came to that realization, and you know I came to that realization because I was in a situation where somebody else was judging me and I started saying “This person doesn’t know why I’m doing what I’m doing.” And through that God said “Look this is what you’re doing to people all of the time.”
Sid: So it’s that what happens in the sowing and reaping principal. You’re judging your daughters and then people are judging you.
Jim: That’s right. (Laughing) And so what was so incredible is I made a deliberate decision I said “You know Father what I’ve done is wrong and I accept your forgiveness for it but more than that I want to walk in righteousness I want to renew my mind here.” And I made a decision I just said “In the name of Jesus I release my children from my judgment, if I want to know why they’re doing what they’re doing I’ll ask them.” And just making that decision and making a commitment to walk in love and openness to them I’m telling you it radically changed by relationship with those girls.
Sid: Well that just sounds too simple Jim.
Jim: Doesn’t it?
Sid: Yeah.
Jim: You know I’ve basically gotten a couple of letters from people who really really have complex problems and they said “This is just too simple.” All I could do is write them back and say “You know something my father tried to burn us alive when we were children; I watched my father regularly try to murder my mother; we were abandoned and by father would come back and break into our home and steal our food we nearly starved to death…
Sid: Jim, how can you be advising other people with such a past like that?
Jim: That’s the great thing about God is you know God turns the curse into a blessing.
Sid: You know you must have a lot of compassion for people that are suffering.
Jim: Oh yeah, when you’ve been there as real to you, you do. But you know what for awhile when I was first saved I was actually intolerant of people’s suffering. And we can talk about that in subsequent program about how judgment will make you not have compassion for people. But the incredible thing was it was these simple ? And I could go on and on about my mother remarried, my stepfather actually did try to murder me. I was stabbed in my sleep. You know I could go on and on with these horrible things that have happened to me. And it was accepting incredibly simple truths and acting on them that freed me for the power of the past.
Sid: I have to ask you something how did you get saved?
Jim: It was an incredible thing I went from church to church to church I asked preachers how to get out of this life that I was in. I was a drug dealer, I was strung out on drugs very severely. And here’s the incredible thing not one person, not one preacher I ever went to told me how to get born again.
Sid: Hm.
Jim: And I was riding in a car with someone whose cousin was a drug supplier for us. The cousin had gotten saved and witnessed to this person. He didn’t get saved he was totally critical of him and he told me the story of his cousin witnessing to him. And it was laced with profanity and criticism and he was telling me he said “If you’re not blank blank for God you’re blank blank against God. I don’t know why the blank blank Jesus died on the cross got anything to do with my…” and he just ranted and raved. And when I got out of the car for the first time of my life laced with profanity I had the message of salvation.
Sid: Oh my goodness.
Jim: And I bowed my head and I said “God I don’t understand this I just know that this got to do with Jesus dying for me, but if You can, if You really can do something with my life today I’m going to home. I’m going to read the Bible and I’m going to find out about You and find the truth.” And I believed on Jesus and I was saved and delivered and then I started the journey of renewing my mind and coming out of the past.
Sid: You know you must have been a very angry man!
Jim: Very.
Sid: How in the world did you get rid of this anger?
Jim: Well you know something when every single day you encounter an incredible love and you wake up every morning and God is loving you in spite of your past and in spite of your short comings. You know as you experience love the Bible teaches us that as we experience God’s love we gain this capacity to give God’s love.
Sid: You know you said something so profound, you said that “All you did was release your daughter from these judgments.”
Jim: Yep.
Sid: And the walls came down, what about husbands and wives? What results would occur if a husband and the wife reads the book and started practicing what you teach and they had a miserable marriage they tolerated each other. They were believers they don’t want to get divorced but they have a miserable marriage they don’t even communicate anymore, they don’t like even like… they don’t love each other anymore what would this do?
Jim: You know I get dozens and sometimes hundreds of emails and letters a week from people that say “For the first time in my life since I got saved I fallen back in love with God and have fallen in love with my mate.” As a matter of fact those are the top two testimonies in our ministry.
Sid: Why would they fall in love with God, they didn’t hate God?
Jim: Well you know what over a period of time people have to a place where I appreciate that I got saved, I appreciate that I’m going to heaven but I’m not really in love with God anymore. What I had in the beginning I’ve lost through my own pain and dysfunction and shame and guilt.
Sid: But people wouldn’t admit that to themselves because they don’t want to say that about themselves and God.
Jim: Give the most incredible invitation and I do this all over the world and when I give this in any church and no less than 80% of the congregation comes down. When I make it safe for them to admit it about 80% of every church that I’ve ever done this in comes forward and says “I’m not in love with God anymore.” And they have this incredible turnaround and fall back in love with God. See people like God, they appreciate God, but somehow or another as the shame and hurt of life comes they’re not passionately in love with Him anymore. Kind of like him, appreciate Him. See that was Peter’s issue. Peter’s guilt made him question God’s love.
Sid: Jim, we’re out of time.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth