Have you ever seen one of those action movies where the hero is in the fight of his life and keeps coming back blow after blow? At some point you’re thinking ‘’He should be dead by now. He’s bleeding from a bullet wound to the abdomen, he has a gaping wound on his arm from the blow of a sword and he’s been kicked in the head so many times I’ve lost count. This dude keeps powering through the pain and won’t give up!”
Maybe you can relate? I know I can.
I remember the season when I had taken blow after blow of heart breaking, gut wrenching, view blurring hits from both the loss of my business and the questionable survival of my marriage all at the same time. Sometimes I pulled myself up by the bootstraps of ‘Christian bravado’ and said “I’m ok!” and kept powering on, proudly wearing the cape of ‘Christian hero’.
Sometimes the pain was great enough to send me to the feet of God seeking his healing balm, but I only let Him get close enough to numb the pain or stitch the surface of the wound, and then I was back on my feet again proclaiming to the world “I’m ok! I’m a victorious Christian” – with my cape flapping in the wind.
Numbing or Stitching Up Our Inner Pains and Wounds
It was with that ‘movie hero’ mentality that I continued to power through the blows and wounds.
But unlike the heroes in the movies, there is a limit to the number of times we can stitch up or numb emotional wounds and keep powering through.
When physically wounded, we know that we need medical attention for complete healing but the ‘hero’, might power through with a quick stitch on the surface of a deep wound to stop the outward bleeding, giving the impression of a healed wound, but the bleeding continues below the skin. Eventually the body is overcome by the depth of the wound when we fail to give it the proper care it needs to heal. Infection sets in and it takes us down.
The movie hero may inject the wounded with a numbing medication so he can power through without feeling the pain. When the numbing injections begin to wear off and the pangs of pain creep back into awareness, the hero goes back for another injection that allows him to ignore what is causing the pain. Eventually the wound, if not tended to properly, will bring him down.
So too with the wounds to our inner being. The wounds that go so deep they can’t be healed with a quick stitch. And yet, we try to be the heroic Christian, powering through with a stitch or a quick injection to numb the pain.
I’ve worn that cape of Christian Hero. And then there comes a time when we realize God doesn’t call us to be heros. He calls us to Him. He is the hero. He is the power. We are the vessel He uses to pour out His power.
There comes a time when God lets us feel the consequences of our ‘power through like a good Christian’ mentality that we fall to our knees in realization that it’s time to take off the cape.
Let Him Reach In and Bring Real Healing
The spiritual stitches we turn to might be:
- a powerful sermon that closes that heart wound for a day
- a book of healing words that seals up the wound while we read it
- a repeated pray that we turn to each time a stitch is undone
What is truly needed is surgery. Surgery that requires us to open up and let Jehova-rapha, our healer, get so close to the wound we have been letting Hi nurse that He can reach in and touch it; not just touch the surface of it, but the deepest part of it.
We want to pull back anticipating the pain of being touched in such raw and open places. But when we are willing to be that fully exposed and real before God, the healing is life changing. We no longer have to limp with the pain of the unhealed wound.
Stop the Numbing
The numbing injection is how we often use scripture. We take that single verse from the well written devotional we read that day and let it inject that wounded place with a temporary salve. Eventually the numbing salve wears off and we go back for another scripture to apply to the stinging wound.
Sometimes God is asking us to stop the numbing and feel.
Feel the pain, the memory, the hurt…
Feel what it is we are trying to numb out of existence.
He doesn’t ask us to feel it alone. He asks us to feel it WITH HIM
- Talk to Him about how it feels.
- Cry with Him about how it feels.
- Grieve with Him about how it feels.
- Shout out with emotion to Him about how it feels.
[your name here] Let me heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds.
Psalm 147:3
And then…
FEEL HIS RESPONSE.
FEEL HIS EMBRACE.
FEEL HIS LOVING WORDS of validation and purpose.
FEEL THE WARMTH OF HIS LOVE
[your name here] Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest (renewal, blessed quiet) for your souls .
~ Matthew 11:29 AMP
CONVERSATIONS AT HIS TABLE
Use these questions to chat with God. Let Him bring you into a closer relationship with Him.
- What wounds are you living with beneath the surface you let the world see?
- What wounds do you inject with a few numbing words of scripture to get through one more day?
- What wounds do you keep asking God to stitch up on the surface but never open up completely and let Him touch you so deeply that the wound is removed without even a scar left in its place?
- Where does it hurt?
- What is the source of that pain?
- What first caused the wound?
- How long have you been tending to the wound?
- Are you ready to stop tending to it and begin the work of complete healing?
As you give yourself permission to honestly answer these questions… take them to Jesus and let the conversation begin.
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