I always told my children to pick up their shoes and put them away. One day I tripped over a pair of my own shoes and broke a toe. My children never let me live it down. Even now that they are grown, they will sometimes bring it up. For some reason they found the incident very funny. My throbbing, hurting toe did not find it so amusing. The slightest bump, even the slightest touch to that toe would cause pain to go racing through my body causing yelps of pain. It was not a happy toe. When it had healed, a bump or touch would practically go unnoticed.
Our heart reacts the same way. When we see in others the slightest tendency towards a way of acting or a characteristic that has led to hurt before – we may begin to think that this person would hurt, that they would offend, or that they would try to control too - and our sensitive heart begins to holler: “Be careful. Watch out.” And that may be good. It becomes a thermometer to protect us. On the other hand, when the hurt heart goes unchecked and unhealed, it soon leads to unstoppable, unrestrained complaints, condemning, prejudices, anger…sometimes even against God. What has caused your sensitive areas, your sore spots?
The Lord once said to me to tell his people:
“I love you so much. Because you suffer, does not mean I don’t love you. When a parent watches his child trip and fall, it doesn’t mean it was the parent’s fault, or that he doesn’t love the child because he didn’t save him from tripping and falling.
But you say to me, I guess God doesn’t love me because He left me trip and fall and I got hurt. A loving parent will encourage the fallen child to get up and will tell him, he’ll be ok. If it is needed, he’ll dress and bandage the wound. And it heals.
And so, just as a loving parent, I encourage you to learn from those events that take place in your life. Come to me and let me hold you and bandage your wound. For have I not said, I bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted?”
|
