Oh, those hurting hearts

This is Us is a TV drama that tells the story of the Pearson family. Kevin, Kate, and Randall are each successful adults who deal with issues to which many Americans relate. In the skillfully written drama, the past is interwoven with the present, giving us a look at the backdrop of decisions and feelings. This week’s episode was an emotional one. The family gathers at Kevin’s rehab for a session that gets intense, where old resentments and hurts come alive, with anger and tears.  Well written and beautifully acted, it was a moving hour of drama! (For this pastor, the one missing element of the show is faith. God is not present, sadly.)  I believe it is fair to say that we all have our wounds, hurts that we carry around. One reason This is Us is so popular is that the writers hook into real and familiar situations. Some us are carrying terrible pain from abuse, abandonment, and/or cruelty. Some of know the ache of being part of an imperfect humanity; slights, insults, missed expectations, and oversights.  

Hurting hearts and wounded souls are real in us and the pain plays some part in how we relate to others today.

Can we heal?

Is there relief from the pain?

Jesus is the healer of broken hearts. He forgives our sin, loves us completely, and sets us free from slavery to regret and sin- ours and those who sin against us. When He announced His mission, He quoted words from Isaiah that are full of promise. "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory." (Isaiah 61:1-3, NLT)  

But, before we are too quick to conclude that a single prayer will heal us, consider this. Healing of the wounds of the heart is much like healing of a wound in our body. It takes care. It requires time. And, we will always carry a scar.

The Gospel is sometimes presented in a way that makes it seem that one quick prayer magically wipes out years of pain or regret. It is true that the Cross of Christ is completely sufficient. We are made right with God – completely – by faith.  We gain an unshakeable assurance of eternal life, a gift that is provided fully by His death and resurrection. Our healing, however, is a process.

Want to start to heal? Prepare yourself to get honest, to rip the bandages off of the wound.  Sound painful? It is!  It may require the help of a skilled counselor, a Pastor, or a patient friend to re-visit some awful, infected place in the heart.  But, unless we are willing to touch it, to open it, to talk about it – it will just fester. There will be actions required. Our wounded hearts develop defenses and coping mechanisms, not always the best or healthy ones, either. Becoming willing to set aside resentment, to change those things, to forgive – is never easy.  But, we can, and with the help of the Spirit, our hurts can heal.

The value and power of forgiveness cannot be overstated. Jesus taught us to pray "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. " (Luke 11:4, NIV)  He reminds us that our own reconciliation to God requires our willingness to forgive others. Even on the Cross, He showed the way when He cried, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  So what does that kind of forgiveness look like?  We are not asked to forget the offense or to pretend it does not matter. Real forgiveness starts with faith in God’s justice, the sure knowledge that He will settle all accounts. Assured of this, we release those who have wounded us to Him, handing off whatever debt we think is owed to us to Him. And, we can then start to heal.  Believe that, friend, for it is God’s way.

The paradox of healing for the Christian is that as we learn more of our Father’s heart towards us, as we become more deeply aware of His holiness and purity, our own sins become more clear to us!  But, instead of shrinking into shame, enveloped in guilt, we also learn of the grace and love of Jesus. That love, amazing, persistent, free, and complete, fills in the holes in our heart; we become whole. And, forgiven and loved, we learn to forgive and love!  "With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. " (Romans 8:1-2, The Message)  "Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life." (Romans 8:6, The Message)

Do old wounds still hurt? Is the way you live today too often shaped by pain from yesterday? There is healing. Oh yes, there will always be scars. When I was 9, I crashed through a glass door, slicing my wrist deeply, creating a bloody wound. A half century later the marks in my skin remain to remind me of that frightening moment, but the pain is long gone.

Here is a word from the Word. Find healing and grace. "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." (Hebrews 12:12-15, NIV)

_________________

Healer Of Broken Hearts

Is your life full of heartaches and sadness?

Are your dreams all shattered and torn?

There is One who through mercy and suff'ring

For you ev'ry sorrow has borne.

He's the healer of broken hearts,

He'll mend your shattered dreams.

He'll pick up the threads

Of your broken life,

And weave them together again.

To your soul He'll bring peace and joy,

A Friend in need He'll He'll be!

The Healer of broken hearts

Is Jesus of Galilee.

Georgia Stiffler

© 1945. Renewed 1972 Fred Bock Music Company (Admin. by Fred Bock Music Company, Inc.)

CCLI License # 810055

What to do with those emotions

A common conversation in my pastoral work goes something like this; “Pastor, how can be closer to the Lord?  I want to feel His Presence, to know Him.”  Is it possible to feel affectionate towards the God of the Universe? Is it right to desire an experience of Him that touches our emotions?  Short answer – Yes!   Let me remind you, up front, that our walk with God is grounded by faith, that we choose to trust His promises, that we learn, know, and do His Word and will, not because we feel like it, but because He calls us to obedience. But, we are not wrong to desire to experience His Presence.  The scripture is full of passages that speak of the “joy of the Lord,” about “loving God, heart, soul, mind, and strength.”  The language of faith is packed with emotional vocabulary.

Are you afraid of your emotions, especially the ones we think of as ‘negative,’ like grief or anger? Are  you reluctant to experience or express your emotions because you think they will control you, or because you fear being ‘unstable,’ or because they’re just too painful?  I was once that way too. I was convinced that emotions were embarrassing, dangerous, and to be tightly controlled.   

What a barren way to live – unwilling to feel, only half-human, and certainly robbing myself of a rich part of what God has given me.  Yes, I hear the objections of some who point to those who are a train wreck in life, who let their emotions rule;  passionate about this today, that tomorrow, professing their love now, and a week later hating the same person.  

Yet, I insist that there is a healthy way to be human, to know the full range of emotions that God gives to us that enrich our relationships with Him and one another. Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages, writes, "Anger, fear, disappointment, loneliness, frustration, depression, and sorrow don't seem to fit the image of successful Christian living. However, both negative and positive emotions were designed by God to serve a positive purpose. It's how we respond to our emotions that lead to good or bad. Negative emotions call for positive action. Positive emotions call for celebration. We should listen to our emotions because they can direct and motivate us to process significant events in life."

Remember the story of David’s joy when he brought the Ark of the Covenant (the symbol of God’s Presence) to Jerusalem?  The king danced in front of the procession, joyfully tossing aside his royal robes. His wife, the daughter of Saul, watched and despised his emotional worship!  She mocked him for being undignified. David’s reply – “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” (2 Samuel 6:21-22)  We, too, are called to celebrate in the Presence of God.

Remember the story of Jesus’ going to the grave of His friend, Lazarus?  He openly wept.  John also tells us that He felt deep anger as He stood before that tomb, confronted with death, the result of sin. He then raised the dead man to life!  And, we cannot forget the well-known account of His angry challenge to those who had made “my Father’s house a den of thieves. This is to be a house of prayer!”  He did not whisper a challenge, nor did He register a complaint with the High Priest. He gave vent to holy fury in the Temple courts.

Yes, Christian, God gave you those emotions. Use them. Govern them, don’t put them in charge. But, don’t ignore them or turn them off.  Learn to feel, to empathize, to experience awe and wonder, to know that our God can be loved, celebrated, that He enters into our suffering, that our tears are a language He understands. Worship will be richer, relationships deeper, life whole as He intends.

"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
My enemies will retreat when I call to you for help.
This I know: God is on my side! I praise God for what he has promised;
Yes, I praise the Lord for what he has promised.
I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?
What can mere mortals do to me?" (Psalm 56:8-11, NLT)

Up and Down, blown all around?

“Steady as she goes” the captain yells to the helmsman at the ship’s wheel meaning, “Keep the ship on course resisting the cross currents, the winds.”  That is God’s word to my heart this morning!  “Steady, Jerry. Don’t falter, don’t stop, don’t race or crawl. Steady on!”  Is it a word for you, too?  I am, by personality, a man who likes to see things accomplished, results matter to me. Impatience is a constant temptation. My late father-in-law, a man skilled in craftsmanship, who could build and fix anything, tried to teach me his skills. More than once he told me, “Jerry, you could do this well if only you would just slow down.”  My need to ‘get it done’ made me less than steady sometimes, much to his irritation. My Heavenly Father counsels much the same. “Steady, wait, trust.”  

Discipleship demands a ‘long obedience in the same direction,’ to borrow a phrase from Eugene Peterson. Every day there are choices to be made that require a higher value, a connection to eternity, if one hopes to live this Christian life well.  I love what David sings in Psalm 57.  His life was full of troubles. Saul had mobilized a special forces team to try to kill him.  He had no refuge, was living the life of fugitive in caves in the desert.  His circumstances were fertile soil in which hopelessness might grow, but did he let that happen?  Look at this song.

 
"They spread a net for my feet— I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path— but they have fallen into it themselves. (Selah)

While his enemies plotted his destruction, he made his heart quiet. “Steady as she goes,” he whispered and then, looking to God who reigns, he broke into song!
“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." (Psalm 57:6-11, NIV)

Yes, friend, we need to learn from him, to make that choice. We cannot allow our emotions to drag us into the pits today, where we complain in despair, only to proclaim great and wonderful plans tomorrow, to be eclipsed by some distraction the day after that!  Steady!  Isaiah, God’s preacher to Judah in a time of spiritual apathy and pending judgment, could have thrown up his hands in disgust, and retreated from his calling. He did not. He points to the secret of being faithful. "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal." (Isaiah 26:3-4, NIV)  

Have you been unstable, too quick to race towards a convenient solution, too ready to quit when things get tough, up today, down tomorrow?  God can change that in you (and me, too)!  Here is a word from the Word, full of promise. I find it interesting that the Spirit chose to inspire the man, Peter, who’s impulses caused so much drama.   

Read it with faith and claim the power promised so that you can hear the call of our Captain – “Steady as she goes.” 

"Be self-controlled and alert.
Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Peter 5:8-11, NIV)

_______________

Abba, in our world full of change, where tempestuous winds blow over us,

Grace us with vision, patience, and steadfastness.

Speak to us, calling us higher, urging us to see Your power in our uncertainty.

Help us, Holy Spirit, to demonstrate faith by the consistent choice to honor You.

Jesus, forgive us our faithlessness, our tendency to seek the easy road.

Call  us to be true disciples, who sing the songs of our Father,

With equal fervor in the sunshine and the rain.

Amen.