Inner Healing
Well, this is a dangerous post. We’ll see if I get slaughtered. The odds are a lot higher when I’m picking into people’s wounds. At any rate, I’m only trying to help and am simply tossing out some ideas here in the wee hours of the morning. Feel free to tell me if/where you think I’m off or if you think I’m right on.
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Throughout life, one frequently seems to get hurt by those they come in contact with. Most of the time, for a lot of people, little things aren’t that big of a deal – a guy cuts us off in traffic and while we might be tempted to do something wrong in that instant, generally, the incident is forgotten before too long. However, there are other bigger hurts. When we get wounded, we can frequently put up a wall and think to ourselves how we will never allow that to occur to us again. And while it is true that we should have healthy boundaries in our relationships with others, it is also true that allowing that wall to come into our life can drain the life out of us, long after the situation or person is possibly a threat to us. In our desire to not get wounded again, through our response, we actually create an environment where the healing cannot get in. So we can cling to our wounds, sometimes even taking some sort of weird perverted joy in massaging and nurturing them all the while becoming more and more wounded by what was done to us. In the end, the “victim” seems to do more victimizing to themselves than the person that did the harm to them due to their response. And while it is true, what they did is wrong, the victim needs to understand that they are only aiding the one who did it to them by ganging up with them in afflicting themselves.
So how does healing occur? Well, it truly is a work of the Lord (though I must say deliverance from a spirit of resentment or bitterness is sometimes necessary, healing through relationship with others – James 5:16 - also can be, or grieving, etc.). One can’t really heal themselves. And while time can sometimes help, sometimes it just gives an appearance that the issue is dealt with when it is still under the surface. Then some poor unsuspecting person says something that catches the wound wrong, and what normally wouldn’t be a big deal causes the “victim” to lash out at this person. Or lash inward at themselves. Or both. It had nothing to do with the person doing something wrong; it had to do with a below-surface-wound getting irritated. In fact, I’d venture to say that frequently when we flip out over the things that aren’t that big of a deal, tend to be because of deeper wounds. Back to the Lord being our healer, here’s the thing about Him. He seems to care far more that we establish a close relationship with Him than that we are healed. To simply use God for what one can get out of Him, but remaining distant is kinda like someone visiting a prostitute. It is just using them. Typically, He doesn’t let people do this with Him. This is why the doctrine of obsession with legalism is so damaging. I hear Christians with nearly non-existent relationships with the Lord keep from getting close to Him because they don’t “have time” (as if any of us have time – it just depends on what we make time for) or don’t want to be “legalistic” about it all. The reality is that they claim to endorse having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ as their closest friend, but through their actions they deny what they endorse. At best, they have a casual relationship or acquaintance – just enough to have an inoculation. They taste enough of the Lord to think they have it figured out, but the reality is that they can’t get their head knowledge down to their heart because the empowerment to live out what they believe only comes through ongoingly (don’t know if that’s a word) living filled with the Holy Spirit which isn’t going to happen when God is only a casual acquaintance. So people get disillusioned and give up. Their spiritual pride deludes them into thinking that they lived a "good" Christian life and if inner healing didn’t occur for them in their time frame, that it must not exist. But nothing could be further from the truth. They just simply approached God for healing from their perspective, rather than from His. And that’s what relationship does… it allows us to see another’s perspective.
**********************************************************************
Throughout life, one frequently seems to get hurt by those they come in contact with. Most of the time, for a lot of people, little things aren’t that big of a deal – a guy cuts us off in traffic and while we might be tempted to do something wrong in that instant, generally, the incident is forgotten before too long. However, there are other bigger hurts. When we get wounded, we can frequently put up a wall and think to ourselves how we will never allow that to occur to us again. And while it is true that we should have healthy boundaries in our relationships with others, it is also true that allowing that wall to come into our life can drain the life out of us, long after the situation or person is possibly a threat to us. In our desire to not get wounded again, through our response, we actually create an environment where the healing cannot get in. So we can cling to our wounds, sometimes even taking some sort of weird perverted joy in massaging and nurturing them all the while becoming more and more wounded by what was done to us. In the end, the “victim” seems to do more victimizing to themselves than the person that did the harm to them due to their response. And while it is true, what they did is wrong, the victim needs to understand that they are only aiding the one who did it to them by ganging up with them in afflicting themselves.
So how does healing occur? Well, it truly is a work of the Lord (though I must say deliverance from a spirit of resentment or bitterness is sometimes necessary, healing through relationship with others – James 5:16 - also can be, or grieving, etc.). One can’t really heal themselves. And while time can sometimes help, sometimes it just gives an appearance that the issue is dealt with when it is still under the surface. Then some poor unsuspecting person says something that catches the wound wrong, and what normally wouldn’t be a big deal causes the “victim” to lash out at this person. Or lash inward at themselves. Or both. It had nothing to do with the person doing something wrong; it had to do with a below-surface-wound getting irritated. In fact, I’d venture to say that frequently when we flip out over the things that aren’t that big of a deal, tend to be because of deeper wounds. Back to the Lord being our healer, here’s the thing about Him. He seems to care far more that we establish a close relationship with Him than that we are healed. To simply use God for what one can get out of Him, but remaining distant is kinda like someone visiting a prostitute. It is just using them. Typically, He doesn’t let people do this with Him. This is why the doctrine of obsession with legalism is so damaging. I hear Christians with nearly non-existent relationships with the Lord keep from getting close to Him because they don’t “have time” (as if any of us have time – it just depends on what we make time for) or don’t want to be “legalistic” about it all. The reality is that they claim to endorse having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ as their closest friend, but through their actions they deny what they endorse. At best, they have a casual relationship or acquaintance – just enough to have an inoculation. They taste enough of the Lord to think they have it figured out, but the reality is that they can’t get their head knowledge down to their heart because the empowerment to live out what they believe only comes through ongoingly (don’t know if that’s a word) living filled with the Holy Spirit which isn’t going to happen when God is only a casual acquaintance. So people get disillusioned and give up. Their spiritual pride deludes them into thinking that they lived a "good" Christian life and if inner healing didn’t occur for them in their time frame, that it must not exist. But nothing could be further from the truth. They just simply approached God for healing from their perspective, rather than from His. And that’s what relationship does… it allows us to see another’s perspective.
posted by Seltzer at 12:29 AM
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