We Chase Snakes Instead of Treating the Bite

Why We Don't Heal from the Pain of Being Wounded—and How God Offers the Anti-Venom

When trauma strikes, something devastating happens: we don't just get wounded—we get fragmented.

Someone betrays you. Someone wounds you deeply. Instinctively, you go hunting for an explanation. You want the wound to apologize. You want closure to sound like repentance.

But here's the sobering truth: most times, it never does.

And so the waiting becomes its own wound. Some of us are still bleeding—not from the initial injury, but from the expectation that one day the person who hurt us will finally give us the words we've been longing for.

The Enemy's Real Strategy: Fragmentation

The enemy's strategy isn't just to hurt you. It's to scatter you. To break you into pieces so small that you forget you were ever meant to be whole.

Think about the last time someone deeply wounded you. Part of you wanted to fight back. Part wanted to hide. Part tried to rationalize. Part shut down completely.

Those aren't just "reactions"—they're fragments. Pieces of your soul trying to survive, each carrying a different strategy for protecting what's left of you.

The abandoned child splits: "I must never need anyone again" lives alongside "I desperately need someone to fill this void" and "I must scan constantly for rejection." Each fragment protected you when protection was needed. But fragments were never meant to run the show forever.

Why We Keep Chasing Snakes

Most healing efforts try to fix the fragments instead of reintegrating them. We attack withdrawal without understanding its story. We shame people-pleasing without honoring its attempt to avoid abandonment. We suppress anger without recognizing it's been standing guard.

Even in deliverance ministry, we make the same mistake. We go after demons with louder commands, without awareness that their influence represents inner division that already exists. We cast out fear without addressing why it found a home. We rebuke rejection without healing the wounds that made it feel threatening.

The enemy doesn't create these fractures—he exploits the cracks trauma already made. He whispers agreement with lies we've believed, reinforces walls we've built, amplifies self-protective voices grown too loud.

This is why willpower fails. Why even powerful deliverance sometimes doesn't last. You're not dealing with a decision—you're dealing with a divided self.

Here's the deeper tragedy: if the person who hurt you was healthy enough to explain why they did it, they likely wouldn't have done it in the first place. Waiting for them to explain the venom is like waiting for poison to apologize.

The Anti-Venom: Christ the Integrator

But God has given us the anti-venom: the Holy Spirit.

Every wound carries venom—words spoken in anger, love withheld, trust broken. It enters our bloodstream as bitterness, fear, or shame. Like venom, it spreads.

Pain isn't healed by clarity. It's healed by presence. Sometimes God doesn't give us an explanation—He gives us Himself.

In Numbers 21, when Israel was bitten by serpents, God didn't tell them to chase the snakes. He told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent. Whoever looked at it lived. Healing came not by understanding the venom, but by lifting their eyes.

Jesus applies this to Himself: "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14–15). On the Cross, Jesus drank the venom of sin so He could pour out the antidote: the Holy Spirit.

How Jesus Integrates

Watch how Jesus approaches fragmented people. He never attacks symptoms—He addresses the whole person.

The woman at the well: five failed marriages, five fragments trying to find completion in human love. Jesus doesn't lecture about morality—He offers living water to quench the thirst driving all the searching.

The Gerasene demoniac: so fragmented he couldn't give his name—just "Legion, for we are many." Jesus doesn't cast out each demon individually. He restores integration: "clothed and in his right mind."

The Three Stages of True Healing (and Deliverance)

Real healing follows the Exodus pattern:

Getting Out of Egypt: Deliverance from obvious oppression—addiction, abuse, toxic patterns. Dramatic and necessary, but only the beginning.

Getting Egypt Out of You: The wilderness phase. External chains broken, but internal ones remain. Here, fragments slowly reintroduce themselves. The angry part dialogues with the people-pleasing part. The wounded child meets a protective parent within.

Living from Union: Integration. Not absence of struggle, but presence of wholeness. All parts working together under your spirit's leadership—the part that knows who you are in Christ.

From Fragments to Gifts

The Holy Spirit doesn't cast out survival parts—He transforms them. What once protected you in brokenness becomes a gift in wholeness.

Hypervigilance becomes prophetic discernment. People-pleasing becomes genuine service flowing from love. Protective anger becomes righteous passion for God's kingdom.

But this happens through integration, not elimination.

Stop Chasing. Start Integrating.

When triggered, don't ask "Why did they do this?" Ask "Which part of me is activated, and what is it protecting?"

Thank the hyperresponsible part but let it know Jesus is your safety now. Honor the conflict-avoiding part but invite it to experience Jesus's presence in tension. These parts aren't enemies—they're wounded allies waiting for redemption.

Forgiveness doesn't mean you finally understand. Forgiveness means you survived and choose wholeness over fragmentation.

You don't need their permission to heal. You don't need their words to walk away. You don't need their apology to be whole.

Even Jesus didn't chase Judas. He washed his feet, let him walk out, and kept moving toward the cross. That is your pattern too.

The Beautiful Broken-Whole

Integration doesn't mean you'll never struggle. It means when you struggle, all of you struggles together, under your spirit's leadership that knows you are beloved.

The people who help others heal most are often beautifully broken-whole—integrated enough to function from love, not fear, but carrying tender scars that let others know they understand.

What was meant to destroy becomes what makes you beautiful—not despite your brokenness, but because of how God weaves it into wholeness.

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👉 Takeaway: Stop chasing snakes. Receive the anti-venom of the Holy Spirit and let Christ integrate your fragments into the masterpiece you were always meant to be.

For deeper insights on spiritual warfare and integration, check out my book Big God, Little Devil. Subscribe for more content like this and support this ministry.