Devotional thoughts - Lent 2013 - Day 11

I neglected to write part of the story yesterday in detailing the freedom I experienced from my “woundedness.”  I had also been thinking about the quality and nature of the pain I was in because of my hurt feelings.  The pain that I felt in a physical fashion was from a wound that I could do nothing about physically.  In the natural, there was no hospital or doctor’s office to visit, no (medical) doctor to see, no bandage to apply, no bone to set, no medicine to take, no joint to brace, no ointment to slather on, nothing at which to look or touch.  I marveled at the way we are created – “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) - where an emotional wound could cause me to experience pain so similar to a physical wound, with no physical evidence at all that the damage exists.

In the midst of my wonder, it was as if I were being directed to “get rid of all bitterness and wrath.”  I had to confess that I didn’t quite know how to do that.  Then it was as if I saw myself holding a coat I was wearing wide open as I faced the sun.  I remembered reading something the other day about some sick people being brought out into the sun as treatment for their ailment.  And it was as if I heard or thought, “The Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings.”

So today’s God Calling devotional (www.twolisteners.org) was a confirmation of the healing and deliverance I experienced, saying:

Live outside whenever possible. Sun and air are My great healing forces, and that inward Joy that changes poisoned blood to a pure healthy life-giving flow.

Never forget that real healing of body, mind, and Spirit comes from within, from the close loving contact of your spirit with My Spirit.

"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun
of righteousness arise with healing in his wings." Malachi 4:2

 

The Our Daily Bread devotional (www.odb.org) challenged me to trust God even in my pain:

In the midst of life’s pain, we need the personal care of the Savior who lived in this world and experienced the same struggles we face. Hebrews 4:15 encourages us: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Christ, who died to give us life, is completely sufficient to carry us through our heartaches and dark experiences. He has “borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4).

Jesus knows there is no simple “recipe” to prevent the heartaches of life, so He entered into them with us. Will we trust Him with our tears and grief?

A continued call to serve God through serving others - even the ones who hurt you, no matter the pain (even of hurt feelings) – seems to issue from the My Utmost for His Highest devotional (www.utmost.org) as it says, in part:

If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.  …

Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.

I must confess that I struggle with why my hurt feelings even caused me such angst.

Hebrews 12:1-4

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

² Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³ For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

⁴ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

But for now, listening to the song “Who You Are” by the group Unspoken, I just pray to grow in this grace:

Ephesians 4:30-32

³⁰ And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

³¹ Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

³² And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

… and my journey with Him continues …