It’s almost unavoidable to do any form of healing of a person’s heart and mind without getting into their story. If you move beyond just a surface conversation, people will tell their stories to try to explain themselves, gain sympathy from you, recruit you to their side against their perceived oppressors, or express themselves as a form of catharsis. Instead of just listening to the story and doing nothing about it (that would be gossip), your role as an intercessor is to direct them to God to heal them of that story. That means identifying the sins committed by and against the person, and asking God to remove those sins through Intercessory and Personal Prayers.

Story Filter Overview

The Story Filter is a structured strategy to analyze a story into its component intercessory and personal issues.

Intercessory issues are sins that you can ask God to remove on behalf of the person, including curses, unholy attachments, and emotional pains to be healed. Personal issues are sins that the person must personally take responsibility for because they committed them: repenting of the sins they committed, renouncing the idols they worshiped, and forgiving the people who sinned against them.

The Story Filter diagnoses these sin issues by asking a series of “5W” questions in order, and then categorizing the sins as the final step.

You often do not need to ask the person these questions as the answers naturally arise from the story, but if they are not forthcoming, then a direct ask may help get the story going, or at least identify a few sins of the story to remove. Diagnosing and removing the initial sins of a difficult story will often unblock the person from telling the rest of their story, rather than trying to get a whole story before removing any of their sins through the Intercessory and Personal Prayers.

Who Are the Characters of the Story?

One of the characters of a story of a personal story is by definition, the person. They may be the sole character of the story (e.g. watching pornography), or they may be just an observer to story (e.g. watching their parents fight). It is not necessary to get the names of all the characters of the story, but it is necessary to identify them all. Identifying them by their names, or at least by their relationship to the person (e.g. former crush whose name the person forgot) is the preferred way to identify them.

What Did They Do that Was Sinful or Hurtful?

This question is the heart of the Story Filter: applying the biblical standard of what is a sin to the actions of each character of the story. Knowing what is a sin requires training and is a mark of spiritual maturity (Heb 5:14).

¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

For example, there are at least 667 sins mentioned in the Bible, and you can add innumerably more sins against the conscience (Rom 14:23

²³But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

; 1 Cor 8:4–8)

⁴Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” ⁵For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. ⁷However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.

which are not expressly prohibited by Scripture, but are part of the person’s culturally informed sense of what is right and wrong. To act against what the person mistakenly believes is part of God’s law is a sin to that person, though it is not a sin to others (1 Cor 8:7–8).

⁷However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.

Discerning what actions were hurtful to the person is easier—just observe the person as they tell their story for expressions of pain. Some people have steeled their hearts to not be able to feel or express pain, so you as the intercessor will have to pick up on what parts of the story should have been painful when the person cannot. Note that emotional pain is from the perspective of the person rather than an objective standard like the Bible. For example, a childhood memory of where the person’s birth mother gave them up for adoption feels like abandonment to the traumatized person. The person needs to forgive their birth mother, and you need to intercede to heal their emotional trauma because the person perceived their mother abandoned them, even though those perceptions may be wrong.

Why Did They Do It?

It’s not possible to determine the motives of others with 100% certainty (1 Cor 2:11)

¹¹For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

except through divine revelation (Ps 94:11).

¹¹the LORD—knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath.

But if God reveals that to you, then it is an additional grounds of sin to repent of. In the previous example, the adoptive mother may have kidnapped and lied to the person to turn them against their birth mother, or it could be that the birth mother really abandoned the person. Only God knows for sure, and He will reveal the stories that the person needs to face to bring their sinful identities to repentance and turn them towards the Truth (John 14:6).

⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Thus, complete mastery of the Story Filter not only requires deep biblical knowledge to know what is a sin, but also a sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit to ask the right questions, discern what is true, what is a lie, and what is missing from the story. Then you have to apply biblical principles with wisdom to situations where a black and white answer is not easy to discern. The Story Filter is not an easy tool to master, but it provides a structured framework to identify and address common patterns in the healing process through a biblical lens.

Where and When Did the Story Happen?

These final questions place the story within an era of the person’s life. Personal stories do not occur in isolation, but relate to other stories based on a theme (e.g. abandonment), a person (e.g. birth mother), or an era in the person’s lifetime (e.g. life right after the adoption). Asking where and when the story happened will help you and the person decide where to go for the next story. Heal all the stories of a certain theme and the person will be free of that stronghold in their life.

Categorizing the Sins into Intercessory and Personal Issues

You now have a list of sins committed by the person and against the person; those are the personal issues that the person needs to repent, renounce and forgive. The effects of those sins, such as curses, unholy attachments, and emotional pain are the intercessory issues you can pray for the person. The Intercessory and Personal Prayers article goes into the theology of these issues, which will help you understand the different types of curses, unholy attachments and forms of idolatry that you may not have recognized in the person’s story.

Take-aways

Further Reading

The Story Filter diagnoses sins to remove through the the Intercessory and Personal Prayers of the Story Method. How Can I See God explains the difference between known and unknown sins, and why you acting only as the Bible expert will not find the unknown sins nor completely set the person free. Instead, you can also act as an intercessor when you listen to God for sins. Who Is Involved in Healing explains the difference between the expert and advocacy healing models, and how they impact your role and positioning in the healing process.