Pain Killers

But I am afflicted and in pain; may Your salvation, O God, set me securely on high. Psalm 69:29 (New American Standard Bible)

I have learned a lot about pain killers in the past week. I have learned how necessary and effective they are for relieving pain. In my case, their sole purpose is to make me comfortable while I wait for my fractured sternum to heal. If I give them time to wear off, I am once again made acutely aware that complete healing has not yet taken place. That is why it is necessary that I abide by the restrictions of my physician even during the times when the pain is not there. I also must keep in mind that the pain killers cannot speed up my healing or even assist in it. Their job is strictly for pain relief and meant only to be temporarily used.

It hasn’t taken long for me to begin seeing the spiritual implications through my physical situation. Just like my body can experience pain, so can my heart, mind, and emotions. Addictions of any kind are a result of seeking relief from pain. I have known people to be addicted to drugs, alcohol, work, sports, material things, entertainment, and immoral life styles. They would go to any lengths to find relief from the pain of guilt, loneliness, insignificance, regret, and shame. For me, it was the acceptance and approval of people. Being in relationship with significant people became my pain killer. But it was temporary and limited. People could ease the pain but could never supply the necessary healing. They could affect my heart but not heal it.

I know that my bones will take six to eight weeks to heal properly and I know that my mind and emotions will also take time (much time) to heal properly. During that time, God is helping me to see where I have been wounded and how much of my heart pain is built on faulty thinking and blatant lies. While He will certainly use people to relieve some of the pain, the ultimate healing and wholeness come from Him and are a result of living connected to Him on a daily basis. Learning to cry out to Him, wait on Him, hope in Him, seek Him, obey Him, talk to Him, listen to Him, and just be with Him. As I derive my sense of value, worth, and significance from who I am in Christ and what He says about me, I will look less and less to people to do that for me. I will also stop making them responsible for my well being.

Indeed, healing is coming but it is coming through God and in His time. I praise Him for the temporary pain killers He provides but I bow before Him as my True Healer.

Father, You are my Great Physician of not only my body, but also of my mind, will, and emotions. I seek Your touch. Amen.

Heal the Wound - Point of Grace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g_dhYDQIdg

Pain is the raw material from which can be made a soul increasingly sensitive to the existence of God's love. ~ John Woolley

Held and Upheld

I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. I looked, but there was no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me. Isaiah 63:3,5 (New King James Version)

As I read these words, spoken by God, there were phrases that jumped out at me with a fresh awareness that I need never speak them. “No one was with Me, no one to help, no one to uphold.” On a human level, some might experience such isolation and loneliness, but not in relationship to God. Isaiah 41:10 brings all three concepts to light as God says to each of us who are in Christ, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you. Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Those are promises of companionship, assistance, and strength.

I use to think of upholding as simply carrying. I found it interesting to see it means to make strong, restore to strength, give strength, strengthen, sustain, encourage, make bold, make firm, make rigid, and make hard. No wonder any believer can voice the words of Paul and say, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me!” He literally infuses us with the strength necessary for any task, circumstance, situation, or experience.

To go one step further, it is dawning on me that even when we are not aware of God helping and upholding us, He is doing it. I can look back at difficult challenges in my life and now see that THAT is exactly what He was doing. In the midst of my fears, frustrations, and tears, He never left me to manage on my own. Even when I didn’t relax in His arms, they still held, helped, and upheld me. His grip never loosened. His eye never wondered, His attention never wavered, and His supply never ceased.

Tonight I am reflecting on His moments of upholding and helping me and I am seeing them with clearer vision and insight. No wonder He repeatedly tells us to review and remember. Our past experiences with Him are meant to encourage us in the present as well as the future. What He has done for us and been to us will continue.

So what is it you are needing to be reminded of this evening? God’s presence? God’s help? God’s enabling and strengthening? It may be a situation that has just come upon you or one that you have faced daily for years. It may be in the physical, emotional, or spiritual realm. Whatever it is, take the promises of Isaiah 41:10 as your banner of truth!

Father, You have always been there for me and will continue to be. I rest in Your arms and am renewed, refreshed, and restored. Amen.

Held - Natalie Grant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2m1HZekCcc

Inner Healing

From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Isaiah 1:6 (King James Version)

Philip Yancey wrote a book called, Where Is God When It Hurts? In it he describes the horrid details of a person with leprosy. Unable to feel pain because the pain sensors are dead, injuries result in infections and the loss of fingers, toes, etc... Imagine putting your hand on a hot burner and never feeling the pain! Nothing would cause you to quickly remove your hand. The injury would be incredible. The point is to realize that pain serves a purpose. It tells us something is wrong and encourages us to attend to the problem.

So often we will recognize physical pain and seek help. But pain of the mind, spirit, or emotions often times is ignored or buried. Words spoken in anger, looks of disapproval, unmet needs all wound and bruise us on the inside. We fail to acknowledge them or bring them to God for His touch of cleansing and healing. He sees the wounds, the bruises, the putrefying sores. Although we may think they are not worth attending to God knows differently. He knows the infection will grow worse.

Until recently I did not realize the extent of my own inner wounds. As God has begun to reveal them to me He has allowed me to see where certain mindsets have been in place. He has let me know there are reasons I have walked in shame, expected rejection, and felt like a burden to friends.

He took me in His arms and said, "You've been wounded. Some wounding was intentional and some was not." Then He gently proceeded to let me know I would not be free from the effects until I allowed Him to identify where I had been wounded, press out the infection, pour His oil into them, and bandage them. Healing begins within. It is a process. Slow and painful at times but necessary and well worth it.

May I allow the candle of His Spirit to illuminate the very places in me that are still hurting. God will never force the process. I must voluntarily come to Him, place myself under His care, and trust Him to do His healing work in me.

Father, You have made the pain productive because it lead me to You. I know You will continue to show me the wounds that await Your touch, oil, and healing. Amen.

The Power Of Your Love MV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xdgJN0quK4&feature=related

He Still Knows What it is Like

He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him. Isaiah 53:3 (Amplified Bible)

What is it you take to Jesus today? Is it ever feelings of being seen as worthless and contemptible by others? Rejection and physical or mental pain? Grief and sickness of soul? Feelings of being forgotten, forsaken, and unthought of? We live in a fallen world in the midst of fallen people. Their negative words and actions toward us can often shape the view we have of ourselves and leave us feeling deeply hurt and in pain. If that is you this morning, Jesus has a message for you from today’s verse.

He wants you to know that He experienced the same thing when He walked on this earth and although it was to a greater extent, it does not minimize in His eyes the depth of what you are feeling. He does not let you know of His painful experiences in order to down play or down size your own, but rather to let you know He understands more than any one the full extent of your grief, pain, and difficulty. He, more than anyone, enters into your situation and stays with you. From Him you will never receive unattentiveness, disinterest, or distraction. He gives to you what no person was fully able to give to Him…undivided attention and a full knowledge of where and why you are hurting.

He also wants you to know the words of Isaiah 53:3 not only describe what He experienced here on earth over two centuries ago, but it is what He still experiences from mankind even in the present. He is still despised and rejected by the very ones He reaches out to. He is still fully acquainted with grief and sorrow of heart. He still has people who turn away from him, lack appreciation for Him, and think little of Him. And He feels the way we feel when it happens to us. So when you pour your heart out to Him and share the sorrow with Him, He knows and is filled with compassion for you.

He knows that in this world we have trouble. He knows that we respond to the things we hear, see, feel, and taste of this life. He knows how fragile our internal world is. He knows we lack the ability to see beyond our present circumstances. That is why this morning, I can picture a hurting person being held by Jesus. Gently rocked and tenderly spoken to like a mother with a small child. Held closely and being told, “Precious child of Mine, I hurt with you and I speak My peace and compassion over you.” If we let Him, He will speak the words we need to hear. They will be like balm to our soul. Words of healing and wholeness. Words of understanding. He is a personal God who knows us intimately and takes in every detail of our life.

Jesus, I lift up hurting individuals to You. Convey to them the full meaning of my words this morning. Speak to them as only You can. Amen.

Phrases to Experience and Embrace

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor, He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. Isaiah 61:1 NKJV

Jesus is whispering these words to me this morning. I must see Him as the only qualified One to carry out each of these truths in my own life before I can direct others to Him for the same purpose. I use to read through this passage with little more than an appreciation for the poetic sound. The phrases meant very little to me. The intended hope that was housed within their words remained unknown to me. But that began to change several years ago. Slowly but surely He is causing the phrases to come alive to me. Each one is beginning to resonate in me as I experience their full impact. He is not necessarily taking them in order but He is individualizing them for me.


When I read “to proclaim liberty to the captives” I immediately recall His invitation for me to step away from a legalistic, performance based way of living my Christian life. I learned the truth and it really did set me free! Sure, there were fears and tears along the way but the desire for freedom and the assurance of it bringing me into a more intimate, personal relationship with God far outweighed the emotions. It birthed in me the passion to share with others how they too can be free. Now I see that phrase and it brings me joy because God has taken me from captivity to liberty!

A harder phrase to embrace is the healing of the brokenhearted. I see it as a message that is being birthed in me for the purpose of ministering to others. Right now the healing is a slow process that is hard to detect at times and the brokenheartedness is profound. It is painful and confusing in so many ways. Good sounding cliches and bumper-sticker phrases will not suffice. I praise God for the people, books, and music that are powerfully ministering to me. But I am acutely aware of God’s personal, direct involvement each step of the way. When His healing is complete I will be equipped to look hurting individuals in the eye and understand like never before the depth of their pain. As with a broken arm, it does not matter how a heart is broken….pain is pain. I look forward to the day my heart mending is complete and a message of hope and healing is mine to proclaim.

Father, it hurts. I rest in the fact that Your healing hands have not left me for one minute. My hope is in You. Amen.

Claiming or Proclaiming the Promise

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5 (NKJV)

For the believer, both aspects of this verse are theirs to experience in life. Weeping is a reality for each one of us and joy is the promise we know will come to pass. If I had the opportunity to visit with any one of you, I know that you would be able to share with me many nights of weeping that you have faced. Some of you may be experiencing them even as you read this devotional. If so, I give to you the promise of coming joy! Some of you are experiencing that joy right now and you are attesting to the truth of that promise. Which ever the case may be, David has an exceptional list in Psalm 30 that can be our proclamation of praise! We can say it with anticipation of the coming joy or with gratitude for the present reality of that joy. Will you join me as I express to God the truth of what He HAS done or the truth of what He WILL do? For we are either seeing what’s coming or experiencing it right now! Either way we glory in Him. With that in mind, let’s review the list.

I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up! You healed me! You brought my soul up out of the grave! You have kept me alive! You have made my mountain to stand strong! You have turned my mourning into dancing! You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness! Therefore, I will give You thanks forever! Oh, how I would love to hear the stories behind those proclamations!

And for those of you who are still in your night of weeping, your list would be spoken in the future tense. I will extol You, O LORD, for You will lift me up! You will heal me! You will bring my soul up out of the grave! You will keep me alive! You will make my mountain to stand strong! You will turn my mourning into dancing! You will put off my sackcloth and clothe me with gladness! Therefore, even in the midst of my tears, I will give You thanks forever! How precious that some of you will express those thoughts with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes. May your joy be soon forthcoming!

Like you, I have known the weeping and the joy! In the midst of both He is worthy to be praised and I trust Him still.

Father, You have walked with me through sorrow and danced with me in gladness. I desire no other Partner but You! Amen.

Strengthened By God

The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him, But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the might God of Jacob. Genesis 49:23, 24

Jacob acknowledged the pain of Joseph’s past. The feelings of victimization could dominate his life but instead we read of strength. Muscles are built through resistance training. Our character, faith, and resolve are strengthened through trials in our life. Just as God strengthened Joseph, He is able to strengthen us.

May I look at each difficulty and see what strength will be developed in me as a result of it. If I will acknowledge pain, hardship, and loss, and then hand it to God, He will allow His purpose to be developed and realized in me. He can use anything in my life as His sculpting tool. I can trust His heart AND His hands.

Father, use all of my pain to produce gold and all of my loss to produce gain. You are the ultimate designer. Amen.