It Starts At The Root!

The Root Cause of Your Problems

Do you ever find yourself troubled by certain behaviors you see in yourself?
It could be a recurring thought pattern, or just how you tend to react or deal with things. You’ve tried to change and step out of it, but somehow it still feels beyond your control.
Maybe when stress hits, you shut down and withdraw… Or maybe you react the opposite way. You become brash and abrasive. You lose your temper and are hard on the people around you.
Maybe you struggle to trust people. You long for closeness, but when someone gets too near, something in you pulls away.
Or perhaps you just keep getting stuck in the same cycle, repeating that same habit or destructive thought pattern. And afterward, you find yourself thinking, “Why am I like this? What’s wrong with me?”
If that’s you, can I tell you something? The Lord is not pointing a finger at you. He’s not disappointed in you. He wants you free. He wants you whole. And He wants you to experience His abundant life flowing through every area of your life.
Now, what if I told you those behaviors are not the real problem? What if they are just symptoms pointing to something deeper?
You see, many of our outward struggles have an inward root. And very often, that root is condemnation.
It may trace back to something in your past you’re not proud of. Maybe you made a mistake you still blame yourself for… and maybe no one knows about it, but you feel like you’re constantly trying to cover it up.
Or maybe it was something someone once said that made you feel like you failed, and those words just stuck in your heart.
In fact, it can be so subtle that you don’t even realize it’s there, sitting just beneath your conscious awareness, shaping how you see yourself and how you react.
Here’s a picture the Lord once showed me that really helped me understand this.
Imagine a plant. Above the ground, its leaves are damaged. It looks sickly, withered, and malnourished.
But beneath the ground lies a deeper root. There’s the root of stress. Then, deeper than that, the root of fear. And deeper still… the root of guilt and condemnation.
Now, the world may be able to identify the stress. They may label it burnout or anxiety, and point to certain imbalances in your brain chemistry. Some may even be able to trace the stress to fear. Fear of failure, fear of not having enough, fear of the future.
But what they don’t see is the deepest root of all: guilt and condemnation, which quietly cripples us.
And often, it’s not the people around us who bring that sense of condemnation. For many, the harshest voice of condemnation comes from within.
“It’s really my fault…”
“If only I didn’t do that… things wouldn’t be the way they are now…”
“I deserve this bad thing that is happening to me…”
Others may have moved on or let it go. They may not even remember what happened. But your conscience does.
And when your conscience cannot find resolution, it turns on you. It condemns you day and night.
The world tries to deal with this through self-care, encouraging us to be kinder to ourselves. And while that can help to a certain extent, addressing the symptoms alone can never bring lasting freedom.
You see, a guilty conscience demands that a payment be made. It knows that when there is a sin or mistake, there must be punishment. And if it isn’t settled in your heart that the payment has already been made, you will unconsciously try to pay the price yourself.
That’s why people self-sabotage. They shrink back from opportunities. They push away good relationships with those who love them. They struggle to enjoy the blessings they have, because deep down they feel they don’t deserve them.
And sometimes, they live under a quiet, fearful expectation that something will eventually go wrong… because that’s just what they deserve.
Here’s the good news. The payment has already been made, and our Lord Jesus paid it in full!
When you truly understand and believe that Jesus has paid for every single one of your sins (Heb. 10:14, Eph 1:7), when you see that He bore all your guilt and condemnation in His own body at the cross, when you realize that you are completely forgiven, you will be set free from the inside out.
Now hear me on this. The Lord is not exposing your past to shame you. He is revealing the root so He can heal it completely.
I want to give you something practical, something you can put into practice in your life today.
Romans 8:1–2 tells us: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.… For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Now, that’s not just a verse. That is a powerful declaration.
There is no condemnation, right now.
Not when you get everything right… not when you finally feel worthy… not when you’ve “made up” for the past… but right now, because you are in Christ Jesus.
The next time that sense of condemnation rises, the next time that voice of accusation comes, speak this over your heart: “There is therefore now no condemnation for me, because I am in Christ Jesus.”
As you rest in the consciousness that you have been forgiven, I pray that fear will begin to dissipate. The stress you’ve been trying to manage begins to lose its grip. And like dead leaves falling from a healthy tree, those troubling habits begin to fall away.
May you truly reign in life and prosper from the inside out—in your soul, in your relationships, and in every area the Lord has called you to walk in. Amen.