Festering Wounds of the Heart
So many of us walk around, trying to live life while we are bleeding from the heart. This includes stoics who “talk” the spiritual talk, while refusing to feel anything like love and compassion enough to really “walk” the walk of Jesus. This also includes those who try to hide wounds with temporary fixes of “feelings,” be it addictions that give the high and numb the pain, or rages of denial and the image of a “successful” life to sop up evidence of the bloody mess of our inner souls.
So many wounds have been inflicted on our hearts by the Enemy through loved ones, self, systems, and yes – even God, it feels at times. Because we have been told lies about God, ourselves, and of one another--that “we will never measure up,” that “we are unlovable,” and that “God is holding out on us for someone else," "that He is not big enough, He doesn’t care enough about my problems," and the list goes on. But God wants first and foremost for us to be honest with these wounds, and for us to acknowledge our need for healing….(Not someone else’s healing,..our own! ) Jesus is the one who says, “…I will keep on…healing today and tomorrow...” (Luke 13:32)
Even minor wounds of the body fester when covered too long. It needs to be acknowledged, opened for washing, and allowed to air out for the scab to form. Too often we just put a Band-Aid on and forget it because we don’t want to deal with it. We cover it without proper washing and processing. Yet, the deeper the wound, the dirt infects it and the wound festers under the darkness of the Band-Aid. Then the bitterness oozes out the sides of the Band-Aid in sarcasm and negativity. Many times in religious judgment of self, and thus others.
He wants to enter into that tender place where it stings, hurts and bleeds; where we build up a protective wall either with clenched jaws of religiosity, methodologies, debates or by lashing out at others (or oozing out sarcasm) when someone “touches” the wound accidentally with a key word, a button pressed. He wants to enter that most sacred covered places of our hearts and souls…where all the core issues and motivations of one’s life originate… and acknowledge our pain, yet bring the healing too. (Just remember the details of Jesus’ conversations with the woman at the well, Nicodemus, and countless others).
I believe this is the work of the Holy Spirit to enter the “most holy place” of our hearts. The sanctuary message is not some grandiose theology to debate, preach, and proselytize about…it was meant as a lesson for what God wants to do IN us, the temple of our hearts. And through Jesus’ infinite sacrifice on the cross, he has torn the veil and has made a way where He and we can have perfect union of two lovers…(at-one-ment)…where we can enter in the Shekinah glory to see his real beauty of love for us, and have him enter into our most sacred place to cleanse the sanctuary of our hearts. And the cleansing process takes some revelations…
If we let Him in, He in His perfect time, shows us what our real hearts are like, and it is not pretty as we may think at times. And I see that in my own life…I see how one minute I can talk spiritual, and yet when I am crossed, how a knee-jerk reaction can take place in verbal poison or a look. If I were to look at just the outside behavior, I’d be tempted to throw in the towel. But I know the gentle voice of the Shepherd has brought me to rest in His grace, which empowers me for growth to victory, little by little, from glory to glory. He knows what pains have brought me to the present. He knows my story. Just like he knew the stories of each individual he reached out to in His walk. And he is still walking us through it.
And with the healing process will come emotions. We often want to hide the emotions, because we do not want to “feel”…for whatever reason. But it is not a sin to feel. [Valid feelings are not “emotionalism” - “isms” is a whole different story]. So many of us are so afraid to feel for various reasons. Sometimes it is cultural, other times it is due to gender stereotypes, and other times we have been told to shut off anything to do with the heart…misquoting “the heart is deceitful above all things…” not realizing that that is exactly why Jesus wants access there. We have denied the existence of passion in fear of the unsanctified; and missed out on the sanctified.
Yet, longings and passions of the heart that are masked don’t disappear—they get misplaced. Instead of letting God into that heart, longing for a passionate relationship with the Savior as David the Psalmist had with God; we condemn the heart and even its sanctified passion, and separate the heart from our being. What’s the result? We secretly give passion over to other spirits that want to control it, and it ends up filling itself with carnal things in secret. How sad.
That’s why we have “religious” people who manage outward reputations but are secretly struggling with porn, pride, and other “private” sins. They make conscious “spiritual” choices externally in public behavior, but in situations where their unconscious triggers are not acknowledged (and sometimes even consciously denied with “I can never fall in that situation” and not surrendered to God), temptation can win out.
Feelings sometimes let us know what things we need to surrender to God. Look at Peter’s anger management issues, cutting off an ear, denying the Lord three times. Don’t we feel for him, and wished he had given those angry feelings to God before he acted? But even still, the feeling that welled up when he saw Jesus’ forgiving eyes changed him forever.
Even irrational feeling is a sign for us to pay attention to, and give to God. If we are afraid of crowds, or trains, or whatever, we can acknowledge the fear, ask God for wisdom in understanding it, and then let the Holy Spirit lead on how to handle situations triggering those fears.
When those emotions well up, that is when we are humbled and can cling to the Lord and say, “to Thy cross I cling.” He just wants us to acknowledge our need for him in every area of our lives, conscious and unconscious. Too often, we judge ourselves when we may be just struggling. When we come to God in honesty and freedom of the present moment instead of what things “should” look like, God can do wonders in Spring-cleaning our hearts…reminding us that the process doesn’t look pretty in the moment. But the God who transcends time can see the finished product and believes in us during the cleaning process.
Although we know that we do not want to be controlled by feelings, we do know when we live from the heart, even with the Holy Spirit guiding, feelings will surface. And sometimes it may not “make sense” in the mind. Look at the emotions in Mary as she bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears. Her emotions made no sense to anyone witnessing her deed.
So many times subconsciously we fall into the spiritual flagellation, especially when circumstances are not as we had “been promised” or thought. So many of us do one of two things…give up or “hunker down” and get really really legalistic, thinking that God didn’t “bless” us because of something we did or didn’t do. Other times we worry and pout. This is some distorted new age way of thinking we have power within us to manipulate the circumstances to the way we think they should be. It is very subtle and insidious. The finished product is His guarantee. He just asks us to show and acknowledge the wounds, the aching, the blood stained areas—to give him ACCESS, and permission. Then our insides become consistent to the outside. Transparency and authenticity becomes part of all areas of our lives. Isn’t that what He wants? Authenticity in a relationship with us, and authentic Community among His people?
I believe this is why Jesus had an easier time healing the outright “sinners” rather than the Pharisees. Pharisees were experts at making the outside look clean…they were good at putting on “should”s and “ought”s onto lives and maintaining an appearance of godliness while denying (the need for and THUS) the power thereof…. They refused to acknowledge their utter dependence on God for everything, especially in the needs of their wounded souls. I know. I am a recovering Pharisee.
Because we only talk God—we “play church.” We preach, “just don’t do it” or “just do the right thing,” and that might work up to a point. But when we deny Him access into the heart—the connection of the mind to the heart and finally to the Life, are not complete. Fears of feelings can cut off the healing process, because when we are afraid to feel, it is because…we honestly do not feel safe with one another and even in the presence of God, because we don’t know Him as well as we think we know Him, and we don’t know him the way He knows and loves us—honestly, with all His heart, soul and mind. Only if we can see consistently that He is bigger and gracious can we be open to Him.
The beautiful part about Jesus’ cleaning project is that there is no condemnation. He woos us. “Quiets/sooths us with (His) love” Zeph 3:12. He is so compassionate in understanding our individual stories. That’s just His way. And when we feel secure and loved by Him thoroughly, we can see ourselves, then see others the way He sees them…less judgmentally.