Oprah Winfrey Soul Sunday

Lenny Kravitz’s Story: Searching for Soul Healing

On Sunday June 2, 2013 after coming out of the church service, I saw the Lenny Kravitz’s story airing on Oprah Winfrey Network. After the show was over, I tweeted him saying, "From personal experience, a privileged life has a curse attachment. At times the weight can be very painful."

I have experienced something very similar to what Lenny went through. I was able to fight off the same negative influence that affected him through his father. Later the same thing affected his own marriage leading to divorce. Many therapists including the Christian ones are not well informed about "spiritual warfare" and the way to fight off "generational curses." As a result, the point of therapy becomes the discussion of social issues, personal interactions with people, and where we find healing in love. Unfortunately, where we find healing may not necessarily be the source of the problem. We find healing in our place of comfort. Our place of comfort is a place where our soul finds temporary shelter and security. All these can help to lift us out of the trenches we have fallen, but they are not the real issues. If we do not directly deal with the real issues, we will fall in the same trenches, over and over again and we painfully watch our children doing the same thing.

Identifying the Source of the Problem

For a reason I’m unable to explain, every time there is an affluent or a privileged lifestyle, there is always a curse associated with it. The negative spirit attachment carries the curse manifestations. These curse manifestations are what we see from parents to children and always referred to as generational curse. The manifestations can differ from son to father, or mother to daughter depending on the lifestyle of the individual. This negative spirit may be human perverted spirit leading to the desire for excesses. It may be demonic spirit leading to dangerous manifestations depending on what the ancestors had been worshipping. At other times these negative spirits may come to torture the children if the parents are serving the Lord and the children are not well informed in Christianity. Because the parents are very strong in the Spirit of God, the demons will come after the children. The rebellious behavior, both social and medical problem manifestations in the children of evangelists are many times associated with the negative or demonic spirits the parents already conquered. The critical key to the resolution of the problem is for the child to rebuke that negative spirit. However, a child cannot do this on his own because the child may not have that spiritual power. The solution is simple. Once the child acquires the Holy Spirit early in life, he will be able to fight off negative spirits because the Holy Spirit with other angels build hedges of protection around the child. This is what helped me to fight off generational curses, or any negative omen within the family. I will discuss more about prevention and healing later in the next section.

People are being victimized by negative spirits even within Christianity because they do not understand the basic aspects of spiritual warfare. I received a call from another preacher telling me he was dealing with an attack within his house. He was asking me what to do because he was getting ready to preach on Sunday. He called me on Saturday evening. Based on the conversation, the verbal attack was coming from his wife. I told him to rebuke the spirit, bind the spirit, push the spirit out and close the door. He did not know how to close the door. I then explained to him that he had to temporarily and emotionally detach himself from the passion connection between him and his wife. When we close the door of our soul to receiving passion from a loved one, or even a friend, we temporarily detach human emotional response to anything the person may be doing. If the person has offended you, just let it go. If you respond, you are drawn into the argument and back into emotional crisis between you and your spouse when you are getting ready to prepare the sermon for Sunday morning. You may also sustain a soul injury that may bleed for a while. At that time it appears as if the wife was the one waging the attack. In reality the devil is using the wife to wage the attack on the husband who was preparing to serve the Lord the next day. The same way we close the door of our soul to emotional attacks from people close to us, we can close the door of our souls to the spirit enemy of God. Here is the rule. If you embrace any spirit, you will feed the spirit. If you rebuke any spirit and stop embracing it, it will leave you alone. At times it may come back in case of an addictive spirit. You must build your defenses against such spirit in case it may come back.

Opening and Closing the Window of Human Passion

For practical applications, when a man sees a woman he likes, he opens up the window of his soul (heart) not only to embrace her, but also to seduce and be seduced. She may respond to his advances by receiving his affection. In the process, she opens up the window of her soul (heart) and allows herself to be spiritually seduced at the human spirit level. This is NOT at the level of the Holy Spirit because some people do not know the difference. Human spirit level is different from the God Spirit level. These two should not be confused. If the female is not interested in the male advances, or she has already tied her soul to another guy, she will not respond to his advances. No matter how hard the male tries, she will refuse his advances if she is not looking for trouble, and hopefully she has some common sense. When both male and female open the windows of their souls to each other, they will both enter a soul realm and connect. Consequently, the two people will soul tie by opening their passion windows to receive the other partner’s affection. Once this happens they will say they have fallen in love. Sometimes due to hurtful feelings in a relationship after many years, the female may gradually untie her soul tie to her partner, and fall out of love. The male can do the same too. When people are falling out of love, they become irritated by each other’s behavior and they start to fight a lot. The process of gradually falling out of love is actually a defense mechanism for self-preservation to prevent your self from more hurt. When this happens we close the door to our soul passion, and stop caring for the partner in a romantic way. The easiest way to destroy a romantic relationship is to pile up a lot of bad and turbulent memories together. Similarly, we can do the same with negative or unwanted spirit attachments. Rebuke the bad spirit, cast it out, and close the door of your soul.

Preventing Curse Manifestation and Finding Healing

What greatly fascinated me about Lenny Kravitz’s story was the moment in his story when he was describing the presence and manifestations of God. That presence of God was the moment he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps he could already have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The anointing added empowerment and God’s spiritual gifts. Lenny is therefore very unique because he already possessed and also able to recognize the source of spiritual empowerment. Other people like the New Age nonsense, who dabble and worship other spirits in the universe, will be unable to understand the empowerment by the Holy Spirit. The more people chase after other spirits, the less they are able to enter into the presence of God. This was the main reason why God got very angry with the children of Israel. God is the source of our spiritual empowerment through the Holy Spirit! Anything besides the Holy Spirit, forget it! If anybody embraces and seek power from any spirit other than the Holy Spirit it may eventually be led into spiritual darkness.

Lenny Kravitz experiencing the presence of God is a giant gift from our Eternal Father to help him along his journey in spirit for the challenges he faced. From his speech, he must have embraced and appreciated the presence of God visiting with him. The light he experienced represented the spiritual presence of Christ. It took me a while to figure that one out, because I tend to see this light more frequently today. In the spirit realm, Jesus wears the garment of light.

One of the similarities of my personal experience with that of Lenny was receiving the Holy Spirit when I was a child between five and seven years old. It does not matter if he received his anointing as a teenager; the important point is that he received such empowerment. Once such spiritual power is received from the Holy Spirit, it becomes the source of our defense against any negative spirits that may come around us. We have the power to rebuke negative spirits. Jesus said, "I have given you power to trample over scorpions, over serpents, over all powers of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you" (St. Luke 10:19).

As a rule, you cannot party with negative spirits and effectively rebuke them at the same time. By embracing them, you are giving them the permission to stick around to do havoc. If you do not want any negative spirit to manifest around you, rebuke such a spirit and cast it away from you and your family. I remember a person that was so worried about his wife’s drug addiction problem. She had been in so many treatments, but it was not working. I started to wonder why this negative addiction stayed in his house. So, I asked him to rebuke the negative spirit of addiction and get it out of his house. But, the spirit would not go away. Later he told me he was addicted to smoking. Anytime the wife wanted to get his attention, she would go get him some cigarettes. It was at that time I made it very clear to him that as long as he was busy partying with the spirit of addiction, that spirit would not leave his house and would continue to torture his wife. He did not realize he created an open door for the spirit of addiction when he himself embraces addictive behavior.

Preventing a negative spirit from manifesting in your life is to rebuke the generational or familiar spirits within the family. This has to be done through the power of the Holy Spirit. It may come back. You must then put up with a great fight regarding any issues that may lure you into such a lifestyle because you have seen the manifestations in your ancestors. Keep watching out for the bad boy – bad spirit because from time to time, the demons of your past will show their ugly faces. Many of the preachers have tumbled in the spirit and fell on their backs because they were never prepared for the demons of their past to show their ugly faces. They were caught off guard and they were swept off their feet.

Another similarity I had with Lenny Kravitz is the emotional burden of being one of the children from a famous and influential family in the nation. From personal experience, my father was a preacher who was very famous in our community. My grandfather was an import merchant who was one of the riches in the nation in the 1940s. He built with cash about ten large houses rented out to people. My mother told me that on the day of her wedding with my father, the national police band came to play music at the reception. My grandfather at that time was considered as one of the aristocrats. My grandmother was from the king dynasty, the daughter of a princess. We had many influential relatives in the government. Within our immediate relatives were about 15 physicians, one PhD and many in powerful positions. Getting education was highly stressed and I was terrified when I saw the achievements already ahead of me. How in the world would I be able to match these successful and powerful parents and relatives? Everywhere I went in the family and close relatives, I heard the same annoying slogan. "You have to get your education to be somebody in life!" I heard so much of that, I was terrified of the fear of failure and the embarrassment I would bring to the family. There was so much shame associated with academic failure. My family did not take education lightly. At that time, I had an uncle who was the vice chancellor of a university and another one be regarded today as the commissioner of labor. Another relative was the president of a bank and the list just continued. This over driven force to achieve led to my failed suicide attempt as a teenager. My parents did not know why. I was terrified of failure; the pressure to achieve was so great and almost pathological. Everywhere I went, I had no identity. I was always called by my father’s name. Only my close friends from the church choir tend to call me by my first name. Everybody else called me by my last name.

There is no doubt, I had many privileges for coming from a well-known family. I did not have problems getting jobs, or getting scholarship because we had influential people in position of power. I also saw the cruelty of power what it did to one of my uncles. The most difficult challenge was, everywhere I went people were always able to identify, and watch me. If I got in a fight at the Sunday school the news will travel home faster than I had opportunity to make it home, two blocks from the church. I remember I was in grade school, and the entire class scored poorly in Bible knowledge test. In the entire class the teacher singled me out. He called me out saying if anybody did poorly in this exam I should have done better because I was the son of a preacher, a member of the church choir, and from a prestigious family. Everywhere I went, I had to create a face for the public to dignify my family’s name. I remember when my father died. We were preparing for his funeral when my mother came to the room where all the children were sitting having a meeting. She said, "You all better be prepared, because the whole nation is going to be watching each one of you on the funeral day." What were people going to be saying about each child was the question we were asking. Over one thousand people came to my father’s funeral. On arrival in the U.S., I was finally set free to do whatever I want without somebody looking over my shoulder. I was able to breathe the air of freedom. Praise God! Unfortunately, the joy of that freedom did not last because my life plunged into personal crisis for the next six years. But, the good Lord delivered me!

From my own personal experiences there is no crown without a cross. Every success in life is always associated with some painful moments. The more blessed you are, the more burden you have to carry, the more the devil will come after you and your children, even while you are in the ministry. For every success you achieve, there is always a ditch next to you. At times while dancing on the steps of success, you may slip and fall into that ditch. Sometimes, hateful people will push you as you crash into that ditch while they standby laughing. Other times you have to wrestle with the demons of your past.

Operation of the Curses

When Lenny Kravitz’s father was telling him about the forces against him towards the end of his life, he was explaining to the son the struggle associated with the spiritual warfare. On one hand, the father wanted to do the right thing. On the other hand, he had these demons he had to fight. Lenny explained that his father loved women, that was one of the reasons why he left his mother. Unfortunately that is a social explanation to a spiritual problem. Anytime people are hurting within, they tend to look for a way to nurture the flesh with anything that feels good. Perhaps the father was being haunted by the spirit of fear of his brother dying in the war. And may be there were other unresolved issues. Evidently some people might have been blaming him for his brother’s death because the brother followed him into the military. Lenny described the spirit of fear manifestations as a monkey on his father’s back. When we are hurting, we tend to take our anger ventilation off on those closer to us without realizing it, including the spouse and children. All of a sudden, the person you love so much becomes the same as the demons you are fighting. This happens because either you are unable to look within, or it is too painful to see the demons inside.

While I grew up in the church, I befriended children from very rich families. The first thing I learned was the negative omen of evil that hanged around some of them especially those that were not well grounded in the Holy Spirit. I remember a friend who was studying mechanical engineering in college. We all went to school together. When he graduated in high school he got all straight A-grades. In college he ran into problems because of the domestic problems between his father and mother. He eventually dropped out of college. One day he got so angry with this father (who happened to love so many women), he went into his car garage and dismantled his expensive Mercedes Benz one piece at a time. He left the pieces scattered all over his father’s garage. A few years later, this young man, with a very promising future, who came from such a very rich family died in the street. He was said to have had some emotional problems.

Healing Process

Remember what God said, "I will visit the sin of the father onto the son, onto the fourth generation" (Exodus 20:6). People tend to confuse this with God punishing the son for the sins of the father. This is not true. God does not punish the son for the sins of the father, this issue is explicitly discussed in Ezekiel 18:14-23. However, God will place that same sin of the father before the son or even the daughter. Each of them will have the opportunity to rebuke that sin. Once the sin is rebuked, the spirit is also rebuked as well. The children are therefore set free from the bondage of that sin. When children embrace a pathological behavior of a parent, they have inadvertently accepted the spirit behind such behavior. A person does not have to be an alcoholic to embrace the spirit of alcoholism. Even though the person does not drink the spirit of alcoholism hangs around the person. If he or she does not get rid of that spirit, the next person the person falls in love with may be another alcoholic. This is how the children of alcoholics who do not drink are attracted to alcoholics. As long as the spirit of alcoholism hangs around a young female even if she does not drink, an alcoholic male is easily attracted to that spirit, and there is a magnetic attraction at the soulish realm. At that moment her soul is captured by another alcoholic spirit in the male similar to the one she embraced in her father, even though she does not drink.

It is much easier to prevent the curse manifestations. Once you notice a negative manifestations happening within your family or with your children, immediately call them and let them know the forces against them. Help them to design a spiritual defense plan to protect them. If you do not rebuke the spirit, the same thing that happens to your father regarding your marriage will also happen to you and will follow down the lifestyle of your children. You must identify the negative spirit within the family and with the help of the Holy Spirit, rebuke and cast the spirit out of your house. If you don’t, you and your children will be the devil’s play toys.

The worst thing a person in spiritual warfare can do is to go into the spirit realm unprepared, and unguarded by the Holy Spirit. Your human spirit is no match for those hostile spirits in the invisible realm. Stay in prayer. Mediate daily on the Word of God. Fast as many times you can especially when being attacked. Mount your spirit with the Spirit power of the angelic fighting forces of Heaven. Build spiritual hedges of protection around your house and your family members. Stay vigilant in the spirit. Suspend your family members spirits in an aura of daily prayers. Enter into the presence of God. You also have to stay basking in God’s glory. Once you captivate the radiance of God’s glory, a spiritual shelter is built around you by the angelic forces. With the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, kick those bad boys out of your life and that of your children, and close the door shut! Amen!

A person does not have to be victimized by the same evil that plagued his parents. The generational curse can be stopped if we refuse to embrace such spirit. In the process of loving their parents and hating their crazy behavior, children may inadvertently embrace the spirit without realizing what they are doing because that addictive spirit is attached on the outside of the parent’s spirit bus. Negative spirits can be attached to us from church members or friends alike. In all these situations, we learn to rebuke, bind, and cast the negative spirits out in the name of Jesus as empowered by the Holy Spirit. Then close the door! Once we have achieved this, we stopped being victims; we embrace victory!

By Yinka Vidal, author of Finding Peace in the Storms – A Wife’s Inspirational Journey with Breast Cancer. Available as an Ebook at Amazon.

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