This post is encouraging to me. "In striving for personal development, the Christian has to overcome faulty self-perception, the opinions of others, and the lies that the enemy may bring to the mind" really sums up what I am dealing with right now.

And all four keys, as lead by the Holy Spirit working in and through our daily life, revealing truth through the word of God, building strength in our weakness, and creating that wellspring of lifegiving water that flows as a river when we let it loose upon those whos path we cross in our daily walk in the Spirit.

Thank you brother for your insightful, and eye opening post. May the Lord our God bless you abundantly with all spiritual blessings in accordance with His will for you. May His hand guide you, and keep you as you lean unto His understanding and not upon your own, and open the heart of those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, that the seed of truth might be planted among fertile soil within their heart. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen

@Daniel Edd Bland III - Due respect, your issues seem to have had far more to do with your own stuborness than anything you've read here.

Further Dr Dobson didn't really help you as much as you think, that help came from Yeshua. I'd recomend that you turn from your golden calf and try to see Yeshua himself. Study what He had to say, not what the calf is saying.

Good post. I practice Buddhism but I was raised a Christian. My father was a minister. I just want to throw something out there. In Buddhism we say "Earthly desires equal enlightenment." This sounds at first like a superficial or even a scary prospect to those of us who are raised Christian or probably most any other religion which is why it needs explanation. As Christians we are raised to believe earthly desires equal sin for the most part and yet we are compelled again and again to jump into those desires wholeheartedly no matter how much we try to lock ourselves up in our bodily houses. We lock ourselves up and throw away the keys and yet eventually we find a cellar window through which to climb out. When I started practicing Buddhism, and by the way it's the same Buddhism practiced by Tina Turner as seen in the book and movie "What's Love Got To Do With It", (just stating that because there are many forms of Buddhism) I was told to pray (or rather chant) for anything I wanted. This again could sound superficial but how can we pray honestly if we do not pray for whatever it is that is in one's heart. The long term goal is not to achieve superficial things outside of ourselves but the road starts where we truly are in our lives. After all, would we scold a child for praying for an ice cream cone? That child is probably praying more sincerely than most grownups. I'd sit down next to the child and pray that his/her prayer is answered. The important thing is when a prayer is answered it deepens our faith and our prayers and inner life begin to grow. We don't know in what way or when a prayer will be answered but they do get answered in the best way for our lives to grow. 

One understandable concern would be to ask, what if someone wants something bad to happen and that's what they pray for? After all, they too are being honest in their prayer. This is actually a not so uncommon occurrence. I once heard the experience of a man who started to pray. He jumped right in and started praying with as much as he could muster for his wife to die. When she suddenly fell sick he became excited that this stuff was really working and he prayed all the harder. He also started sticking his head in the bedroom asking in a sweet tone of voice how she was doing. His wife didn't know what he was praying for but to her, this was the most attention he had paid to her in years. She in turn began to speak more sweetly back to him. Meanwhile as he continued to pray he realized that the least he could do for her in her final days or hours was to try and make her comfortable. He also started recalling better days with her. He became even sweeter to her and she returned the sweetness in kind. As it turned out she had something like a common flu and recovered but their relationship had made a breakthrough. The experience sounds simple but would this have happened had prayer not been involved, even such a negative one? God does work in mysterious ways, and sometimes in ways that in retrospect seem far too obvious. Either way, God works through us but we have to be honest whatever that means in the heart of each individual whether that means praying for a spouse to die or for an ice cream cone. 

As to your point about growth, I think you are spot on. One of the reasons I ventured out from the Christian church to find answers was as a white kid living in the suburbs I could not reconcile in my mind how "good Christians" could justify being racists. I also began to see that the "thou shalts" and the "thou shalt nots" were being obeyed in appearance only. Behind closed doors other things were going on. I sometimes look at it like this. If Jesus had taught how to shoot baskets he could demonstrate layups and sinking 3 pointers day and night but if the kids remain at court side believing they could never themselves shoot baskets they'd be missing the entire reason Jesus was teaching them. Saying it another way, if I tell a class that through me they can learn how to write music I don't mean for them to put their staff paper away and worship my music.