The Part is Not the Whole

It appears that we are on a journey of discovery with the Lord in which He takes us back to re-visit things we’ve previously thought we understood. Apparently, those first exposures were simply foundational to greater levels of revelation; and so it is with ‘the part is not the whole’. The Lord recently impressed me to write about it, so I was shocked after-the-fact to learn that it was not only the subject but also the title of our first chapter in Exploring Heavenly Places, and the concept pops up here and there in other portions of that and other books as well. So, my ‘new’ article has been re-worked to incorporate what we now know into one place, though the Lord will undoubtedly continue to build upon our understanding.

It is often a thought that establishes a wonderful principle in my mind, a thought that seems so simple at first that I am tempted just to forget it as a meaningless intrusion. However, as I am nudged by the Lord to seriously consider the ramifications of that thought, the enormity of the implications can astound me. In such a way, my consciousness was invaded one day in the midst of life’s daily routines, “The part is not the whole.” What in the world did it mean? How could such a random thought be as significant as this one seemed? I was unable to ignore or forget it, and ‘the part is not whole’ surfaced again and again, as if my mind was a computer processing a byte of necessary information to solve a complex mathematical equation.

 ‘The part is not the whole’ is historically rooted in my journey into prayer ministry, which began on October 7, 1989; in fact, you could say my life was simply routine until this day. A lady who wanted prayer for deliverance had called a few days earlier and we’d made an appointment, even though I had never prayed for someone in this way as a Baptist pastor. As I performed my first deliverance without knowing what I was doing, the Lord marvelously set her free and my prayer ministry journey began. This first ministry session was a life-changing day and it became the basis of my first book, Ravens: Unseen Evil, Unwilling Eyes. My life has never been the same since, but this was just the first life-changing experience; there was much more to come.

A few months later, a man who had suffered severe childhood abuse approached me indicating that he needed help, and felt the Lord had directed him to me for prayer. I was not prepared for what happened next! Suddenly, I was not talking to the man but to a young boy expressing the pain he had tragically suffered as a victim of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA). This was my first experience with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), and following that session many others that had also experienced terrible pain as young children started coming for prayer. This was a psychological world that was both troubling and terrifying, and I was shocked at the reality of such evil. This was not something I had ever encountered in my twenty years as an American Baptist pastor who had grown up in a Southern Baptist church. This young man had been a member of the youth group many years before when I’d begun as a youth pastor; so the troubling question (both then and now) is how many other people that have endured such abuse have been right in front of us over the years, yet we never had a clue?

During our first appointment, the man shared that he had moved on from the Baptist church and had become part of a Vineyard congregation where he had grown in the prophetic. I began the prayer session, not at all prepared for what happened because suddenly his voice changed into that of a small boy. During the first few hours, other boy and girl voices spoke to me, and memories of unimaginable abuse were conveyed. We met several times over the next few months; I reeled from the horrific memories of extreme evil to which he was subjected, as well as ritualistic acts he was forced to participate in. Once, on vacation with my wife, Donna, I started tasting blood in my mouth. There was no apparent cause, but I wondered if it was somehow connected to the ministry with the young man so I called him and asked if he had done something. He replied, “I asked to Lord to let you taste blood if you really believe what has happened to me.” My Baptist mind was blank! How could such a sensation happen? Physical discernment of spiritual manifestations has now become a way of life for me, but then it was completely foreign!

So began my prayer journey with people who had been diagnosed with MPD, now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). More and more people with this disorder began coming for prayer, and therapists who had worked in our church’s counseling center started bringing their clients in as well.

One Sunday afternoon, a therapist brought in such a client, and we met in a Sunday school room on the west side of the church sanctuary. An intercessory team of three people had come to assist us, and as we prayed the Lord took the lady to a memory of abuse as a little girl. In the midst of her memory she turned to me and began speaking in a little girl’s voice; but then she said in a completely different voice, “Paul, do you want to see her healed?”  Internally, I really believed this was the Lord taking to me through her and I replied by saying, “Yes, Lord, I would like to see her totally healed.” In those days I had all my prayers typed out because I didn’t know what else to do, but the client started praying all them without any prompting on my part. I guess the Lord knew the prayers!

Then I felt the ‘whoosh’, a surge of power cascading from the top of my head to my feet. I turned to the others in the room and asked, “Did you feel that?” Everyone confirmed that they had felt the same sensation. For the first time in my life I understood the physical manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit. Not only that, but the change in the client was startling, and she left a totally different person. The next day my secretary came in and commented, “Whatever happened in that room is still there.” Walking into the room, I could feel a tingling sensation all over me, along with an awareness of God’s power. I walked into the sanctuary and could feel what seemed like a river of that power flowing across the front of the sanctuary.

The Lord continued teaching me systematically about ministering to people with DID, but I’ve come to realize today that methods and models of ministry are not enough. We must welcome the aggressive power of the Holy Spirit as He moves within the DID system of a person in order to see results that are long lasting. Back then, even as I continued to pastor and minister through prayer, I started having an uneasy feeling that I was to discontinue my work with DID sufferers. I was now pastoring another church, and many with DID were still coming for prayer; but despite the pressure from these hurting people seeking help, the Lord told me to stop working with them. I was mystified, and second-guessed my decision to quit; but in retrospect it’s clear that the Lord wanted to bring me back into balance, and to have a healthy perspective when dealing with DID that is a result of catastrophic abuse.

Within a couple of years, The Lord released me to minister to these gifted and wounded people once again; but in the meantime, I listened to every recording I could find about DID and devoured every book I could read that explained this defense mechanism of our body, soul and spirit.

In 1994 the American Psychiatric Association, in its publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), the term ‘Multiple Dissociative Disorder’ was changed to ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’ (DID) in order to more accurately describe the malady.[1] Since those early years, extensive research both by Christians and the academic community has explored the staggering complexities of DID.

In 1998, a mutual friend introduced me to Dr. Tom Hawkins, who had also previously been exposed to DID. He had come to our home for a seven-day visit when we were living on the property of the Center for Prayer Mobilization in Idyllwild CA, and a wonderful friendship developed. We later spent much more time together and often talked by phone as we matured in our understanding about DID. Tom’s ministry, Restoration in Christ Ministries, became a leader in helping those who were severely abused by others.[2]

A person with DID can have many parts, often known as alter identities or alters, and Dr. Tom Hawkins has given us a good definition of an alter:

An alter-identity is a completely separated projection of the person’s true self, formed through dissociation to enable him to cope in the midst of overwhelming trauma. This is a more accurate designation than alter-personality, as each of these parts has a distinct identity but not always a completely developed personality. They are much more limited in function and awareness than primary identities, which carry the strongest essence of self.[3]

Many years of ministry and study has taught me that the diagnosis of DID can be seen as many different levels of dissociation. A person can experience a simple dissociation, such as being at the dentist and escaping in your mind to a pleasant place like a park; you don’t want to be in the chair, you do want to avoid the pain of the moment, and your mind can escape by going somewhere pleasant. We can also dissociate when we are driving long distances and suddenly find ourselves at the needed offramp, wondering how we got to that point; but dissociation from abuse goes a lot deeper. As the level of abuse increases, the intense pain can result in parts being developed; whole personalities are formed and become isolated in order to serve many different functions. These parts can be hidden from the main, or host, personality so that the person is unaware of them until an event triggers something that allows the parts to come to the surface of the person’s psyche. In fact, as I have talked to parts, they often exhibit the characteristics of the person, sometimes thinking they are the only one in the body.

In ministering to the parts, we have learned that while a part can manifest as a complete individual and all aspects of a total person can be seen in the part, there are also times when the part believes that he or she is the entire person. For example, a three-year-old part may have the memories and personality of a three-year-old; he is everything that a three-year-old is, yet it is only a part; it is not the entire self. This separation from the core identity allows the parts of the whole person to be scattered, and relegated to different places in the spiritual world. Each part has the appearance of the whole, and might even function as a whole; but it is only a part; and each part can hold unpleasant memories from the past; but again, the part is not the whole person. The concept of DNA provides a good illustration: each cell contains the complex information of the entire person, but that small part is not the whole individual; it is only a part, and a microscopic one at that.

During the ministry of inner healing, these deep-seated wounds can be discovered through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and healing can occur. The process of acknowledging the memory, the part, and allowing it to be brought back into the whole of a person is called integration. The integration may be as simple as remembering an unkind word that caused us to be stuck in the past and is quickly resolved. Or, it may be the result of one or many horrific experience(s) that caused a part to be totally isolated from all other parts, in which case the process of integration may be a complex process of many steps. These steps may include remembering an event, acknowledging the memory, forgiving those who caused the injury, and perhaps even forgiving oneself or forgiving God.

In the fall of 2017, Donna and I ministered for five Sundays at Mountain View Community Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Each Sunday was an adventure in preaching; the Lord would instruct me, sometimes at the last minute, on the subject I was to speak about. One morning I woke up and heard the word ‘complete’. I made every attempt to go back to sleep but it was impossible. ‘Complete’ was ricocheting between different places in my mind, and sleep was now elusive so I struggled out of bed and sat in the chair.

Through dreary and sleep-deprived eyes, I booted up my computer and opened my Bible software wondering where the word ‘complete’ is found in scripture. I noticed Matthew 19:20-21:

The young man said to Him, ‘All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?’  Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

I wondered what the Greek definition of ‘perfect’ was, so I did a search and discovered that the ‘perfect’ actually means ‘complete’. The same word is used in Colossians 1:28:

 “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect [complete] in Christ Jesus.

The Greek word for ‘complete’ is teleios, which means ‘whole’; of sacrifices, ‘without blemish’; with no part outside, nothing that belongs is left out of the soul and its full faculties. It is maturity. In Greek philosophy it was the point of total humanity. It is the fellowship of families and localities in full and self-sufficient life, and this completeness leads to happiness. It is an unblemished, undivided, complete whole so the heart is undivided.[4]

I may have been tired and sleepy, but the Lord used that moment to show me that the goal in our life is to be ‘complete’ so that there are no parts left outside, but dissociated parts of an individual can be scattered into many places, both inside and outside of the body; places such as the ungodly width, length, depth and height,[5] the ungodly spiritual stars, star systems, constellations, zodiacs and galaxies, or places in time other than the present. What happens to them? Frankly, the complexities are beyond our understanding; but fortunately, God does understand and He wants to see us brought back into wholeness so that we can be all that He has made us to be.

I have often been troubled because I could not understand how a person could be trapped in so many different places at the same time. How could one function in life on earth and yet inhabit many other places in the spiritual world? Furthermore, as the soul or spirit is fractured into parts and scattered into various places, the obvious question is what happens to them there. As we experienced our own revelation, we noticed that many others were receiving similar truths. Ana Méndez Farrell writes in her book, Regions of Captivity, about ministering to her hospitalized sister. The Lord showed Ana that her sister was trapped in an underwater cave, and she provides a visual image of her vision in the book. The Lord revealed to Ana how to minster to her sister, and the result was a wonderful healing. I was astonished because I was already aware of how the Lord had shown many people through dreams and visions that they or others were also trapped under water. How was this possible? It was clear that Ana could see her sister in the hospital room, yet she also saw her under water. How could she be in two places at one time? It was while looking at Ana’s picture that I had a sudden realization that ‘the part is not the whole’ finally made sense, and then I finally understood. ‘The part is not the whole’ wasn’t such a random thought after all! It is a truth that has deeply affected me; it is a truth that has enhanced my understanding of the complexity of issues that affect the function of the human being. Even so, my mind still reels while trying to grasp the enormity of the implications of what can happen to one’s body, soul, and spirit.

To add to the complexity of this reality, dissociation can happen in the generational line as well, and separated generational parts still seem to have influence on a person who is alive today. It is also possible that these parts have been fragmented so that the solution to finding a part and bringing it back to the body is only solved by first bringing the fragments back to the part, at which point the part can be addressed through the Lord’s guidance in prayer, returned to the person, and placed into the Lord’s perfect time.

Since such scattering has been the result of terrible wounding and the Lord can undo the work of the enemy, wholeness can be achieved. God is always greater! This is a truth that is well illustrated by the psalmist as he praises the Lord for delivering him from Sheol, which is located in the ungodly depth.[6] The psalmist expresses this concept in Psalm 86:11-13:

Teach me Your way, O Lord;

I will walk in Your truth;

Unite my heart to fear Your name.

I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,

And I will glorify Your name forevermore.

For great is Your mercy toward me,

And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

In this poetic expression, David is asking the Lord to unite his heart and to deliver him from Sheol. The word ‘unite’ is the Hebrew word yahad, which means ‘unitedness’, ‘unit’, ‘together’ and ‘altogether’. It is interesting that the word is translated in the Septuagint as homothumadon, which means ‘with one mind’ or ‘unanimously’.^[7] The word is often used as a term of unity among believers, but is it possible that it also designates a personality that is no longer fractured, but unified or ‘complete’?

The complexity of this is staggering, but everyday reality lends context to how common it is. It is not unusual to find that a person’s tormented-and-separated parts relate to the exterior, physical world in ways that shock us. How often have you talked to someone and been astonished by their response to you? You might attribute what is happening to them as a bad mood, while in reality you are actually relating to a wounded part that is now responding to a comment from you. It is then compounded when, perhaps, a wounded part of you responds and the conversation spirals downward into a heated debate or fight. Then both of you walk away, confused by the reaction of the other, wondering what just happened in the midst of a seemingly civilized conversation, and asking, “What did I say wrong?”

While pondering all of this, I suddenly had a profound thought. We know Jesus is coming back for a complete bride, we know that He wants a Body that is in complete unity, and we have had endless discussions about the need for unity in the Body of Christ; but what if there is another layer of unity that we have not considered? What if we first need to have unity within our own bodies? Indeed, without unity within ourselves, we really cannot conceive of unity with others. Is ‘oneness’, or unity, even possible with others unless I am one within myself?

The strategy of the enemy is not only to keep us from achieving oneness with others, but also from experiencing unity within ourselves. The enemy scatters us so that he can steal that which God has given us, and then transform it into power to accomplish his own purposes. The enemy scatters us in ungodly heavenly places in woundedness, rejection, shame, loneliness, pain, fear and whatever else, so that we become unable to walk in or utilize the power and blessings that the Lord wants for our internal unity.

There is a very interesting passage in Genesis 11:6:

And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” 

The people at the tower of Babel were unified for evil purposes. They were building a tower to reach into the heavens (not heaven); in other words, they were building a tower to reach into the dimensions. These people were exercising a God-given principle of unity, which dictated that there would be success for nothing that they purposed to do will be withheld from them.

Let’s take this a step further. What happens if the enemy scatters each individual person into many parts that now operate in unity within the person, not for God but for the enemy? The enemy operates within these parts, convincing them of the bad intentions of the Lord so they come into agreement (unity) to work on behalf of the enemy rather than the Lord. I have pondered if this is an aspect of the ‘mystery of Babylon’. What if the enemy takes all of the scattered soul and spirit parts of humanity, and utilizes them in unity for the sole purpose of taking over the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God in order to set up his own kingdom? We are now back to the beginning of Babylon/Tower of Babel, and the enemy’s original intent to create unity for the purpose of dethroning God and establishing an evil empire. It’s the same old scheme, just using a slightly different tactic.

Perhaps Deuteronomy 30:4-6 has a deeper meaning then we have imagined:

If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.  Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Notice Moses says, with all your heart and with all your soul. We must be one; we must be complete to do this! Is it even possible to fully love the Lord and to follow Him until we are one inside?

King David knew that he could actually be torn into pieces, and that he needed to be delivered from the enemy.

O Lord my God, in You I put my trust; Save me from all those who persecute me; And deliver me, Lest they tear me like a lion, Rending me in pieces, while there is none to deliver.^[8]

As I became more experienced in relating to the parts of people, I began asking if the part was inside body or outside of the body. Very often, I would get a response that would surprise the client as a part would say, “I am outside of the body.” I would then have follow up questions.  “What’s it like where you are?” And they might say: “It’s real cold”; “It’s really empty”; “I’m in a void”; “I’m in a black hole”; or “I’m attached to a star”. This condition is very painful for the parts, as well as for the person, and the internal conflict is the source of much suffering. Proverbs 18:14 reminds us:

The spirit of a man can endure sickness but as for a broken spirit who can bear it.

As I was relating these insights to the people of Mountain View in, a lady in the congregation raised a hand. I invited her to share and she said, “When I woke up this morning, I had had a dream about outside line tables, and the glass was shattered like tempered glass that breaks into a million pieces. I was cleaning it up off the grass; there was shattered glass everywhere.”  Another person raised a hand and volunteered, “When she said that, I saw shattered glass all over the entire floor of the cafeteria.”

Pastor Rob then shared the dream he had early that morning.

I had a bizarre dream in which I kept going in and out of the dream; I would sleep great and wake up refreshed, but while in the dream I felt so disconnected. In the first scene I was in the back of a bus, dressed as a German soldier and there were German soldiers in front of me. I was aghast that one of the soldiers took a gun and shot a fellow soldier in the head, and then I’m like, “I’m out of here!” I started going down the middle isle but they all pushed me to the back of the bus, and started shooting one another. I shared this with my wife and she said, “Oh, that’s dis-unity in the church.” Next, I found myself outside an elementary school, but not here; it’s in the salt lake area of Honolulu. Pastor Jason was there and he helped me go into a door; and I saw Pastor Tisha, who also went into a door. There I was in the school, going down a long corridor through all these doors, and as I went through each one I made sure they were closed; I think the doors went into heavenly places. There was an enormous screen with a child’s cartoon playing, and our worship service was about to start but I realized that our worship team wasn’t there. I turned to Pastor Barb and asked, “Where’s our worship team?” She answered, “There’s no worship team here today Rob; they’re not here.” I asked, “How come they’re not here?” She responded, “You never told them to come here.” I was really frustrated, and then realized I didn’t have my sermon notes. Thinking they were in my car, I went out to the parking lot, but now my car was not there; so I’m just in total frustration, not connected at all. I noticed a friend and asked, “Why are you here?” He said, “I’m going surfing,” but I’m thinking, “Dude, why? Nothing is united, everything is scattered, and I’m flustered.” Then I got up and began sharing with a congregation of people that I didn’t recognize; they seemed to be from different cities across the United States. I was explaining how our church flows and what’s supposed to happen, while also apologizing that things were not going well. The people began getting up and leaving one by one. There was no unity. It was the most perplexing dream I’ve ever had. I hated it! It’s clear now that I was feeling disunity, not of our congregation because we’re a very united church, but the disunity within each of us, the parts of the person.

As I finished with the sermon, Rob interrupted me to share that he had just received a text from someone in the congregation saying that the previous day had been Armistice Day, the day of freedom in France. Armistice Day is commemorated every year on November 11th to mark the armistice, or peace agreement, signed between the Allies of WWI and Germany for ending the hostility. It took effect at 11 AM, on the 11^th hour, of the 11^th day, of the 11^th month of 1918. I found this to be very profound, for the Lord wants to see an armistice among the scattered parts within a person, an end to the hostilities with one other, the person, and the Lord. His desire for us is for there to finally be peace.

So, what is the solution? In ministry, the Lord has shown us that He can rescue all these parts no matter where they are or how far away they are. Nehemiah 1:5-11 provides a startling, and illuminating, statement (notice another 11—the prayer ends on 1:11):

And I said: “I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’  Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand.  O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” [9]

Though it may be that you will want to have someone else help you with pursuing your integration, the Lord has given a prayer as a beginning step for rescuing our scattered parts:

Father, please rescue me from every ungodly place to which I’ve been scattered in my lifetime and make me complete. Please retrieve every part of me that is entrapped in the ungodly width, length, depth and height, time, the stars, the zodiac or on the ungodly grid. Please disconnect me from all ungodly spiritual beings and return to me through Your blood every shattered part of my soul and spirit. Lord, I desperately desire to have an undivided heart so that I may be united with myself, united with others, and united with You. In Jesus name, I now give each of my scattered parts permission to feel and express all the emotions bottled up inside of me. Father, please send the chariots of fire to rescue all scattered parts; please release the Lion of Judah to release the sound that will bring integration and unification. Amen

Note:

[1] http://www.rcm-usa.org/ Dissociative Identity Disorder: Recognizing and Restoring the Severely Abused Tom R. Hawkins, Ph.D. “Dissociation is generally considered to be a disturbance or alteration in consciousness, memory, identity or perception of the environment. Normally, a person integrates these various functions, whereas dissociation is a compartmentalization of these functions. Dissociation is a process whereby the mind separates one or more aspects of its function (knowing, feeling, tasting, hearing, seeing, etc.) away from the normal stream of consciousness. Dissociation lies on a continuum ranging from the normal phenomena of day dreaming, fantasy, and “highway hypnosis” on the one end to the poly-fragmented (highly complex) multiple whose mind is split into hundreds (or thousands) of separate identities on the other end. This condition was formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), but was changed to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in 1994 by the American Psychiatric Association with its publication of DSM-IV, in order to more accurately describe the disorder.”

[2] Tom Hawkins passed away a few years ago and Diane Hawkins how leads Restoration in Christ Ministries.

[3] http://www.rcm-usa.org/ Dissociative Identity Disorder: Recognizing and Restoring the Severely Abused. Tom R. Hawkins, Ph.D.

[4] Delling, G. (1964–). τέλος, τελέω, ἐπιτελέω, συντελέω, συντέλεια, παντελής, τέλειος, τελειότης, τελειόω, τελείωσις, τελειωτής. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 8, p. 67). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

[5] For more information, see Exploring Heavenly Places, Volume 9: Travel Guide to the Width, Length, Depth and Height

[6] See Exploring Heavenly Places, Volume 1 for more information regarding locations in and effects of the ungodly depth, as well as The Prayer to Release One From the Ungodly Depth, which is also available at https://aslansplace.com/language/en/prayer-to-release-one-from-the-ungodly-depth/

^[7] Gilchrist, P. R. (1999). 858 יָחַד. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 373). Chicago: Moody Press.

^[8] Psalm 7:1-2.

[9] See also Deuteronomy 30:4 and Isaiah 41:8