“Pour out your emotions to Him and He will pour His healing truth into you.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – January 30, 2022
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18
I recently spoke with a woman who said she had a couple of difficult break ups. When she shared about her experiences, she spoke matter-of-factly, as if she was talking about doing the laundry. But the tears that glistened in her eyes gave her away. As she spoke, I sensed she struggles with giving herself grace, with allowing herself to feel emotional pain so she can receive emotional healing from Christ.
I asked her, “What do you do with your bad feelings and painful emotions?”
“Well, I just shove them over here in a drawer and move on,” she said as she motioned with her left arm to show how she “puts away” things that hurt.
“But you really haven’t moved on, have you?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “I guess I haven’t. But I can’t allow anyone to keep me down.”
This beautiful young woman is missing out on one of the most glorious and liberating truths of knowing Christ: He came to bind up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1). Gloriously, though, He didn’t just come to heal our hearts; He came to use the painful events and difficult emotions we experience to teach us more about Himself, His love, His truth, and who we are in Him. But when we insist on “putting away our pain in drawers” we miss out on the transformational power of hurt.
In his Institutes, John Calvin wrote: “The greatest way to know God is to know ourselves, and the greatest way to know ourselves is to know God.”
We learn about ourselves, about the Lord and about His love as we allow all aspects of our stories—both good and bad—to surface in our hearts during quiet moments with Him. It’s then that He can speak to us, reveal His healing truths to us and do the “binding up” of Isaiah 61:1. And, as John Calvin said, we come to know Him more intimately and realize He knows us intimately too.
This is what it means to experience Jesus as the Divine Healer. We give our hurts, feelings, and our thoughts about our hurts and experiences to Him, and through His Holy Spirit, He shares His healing truth with us. He teaches us the true meaning of the events of our lives and helps us interpret what has happened to us. But if we insist on shoving down our pain, we miss out on receiving His liberating perspectives.
When we’ve got it right, we pour out our emotions to Him and He pours His healing truth into us.
One of the reasons so many people love the Psalms is because the Psalmists knew how to do this well. In one verse, the Psalmist may be crying out, “God where are you?” and in the next verse, it’s clear that God has given him His truth, “Lord I know you never leave me.” The Psalmist pours out his pain and God pours His truth into him. This is one way we receive His beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3).
Are you ready to give God your pain today so He can give you His healing truth?
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26).
Prayer
Lord, please help me not to feel that I have to heal my own emotional wounds and deal with my struggles on my own. Help me to see that you are right here with me, ready to give me your truth when I give you my pain. I love you Jesus. Thank you for always loving me. Amen.
Application
Are you allowing Christ to transform your pain by being open with Him? Are you comfortable sharing your hurt, or do you lean more on being self-sufficient? Are you trying to heal your own wounds, or do you feel safe opening up your heart to Him?
Related Reading
John 14:27; Isaiah 41:10; Psalm 55:22
Worship Resource
Kari Jobe: Healer
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