The Doctor is in

I was hurt pretty bad recently. I won't go into the details of it but, let's just say that I felt like I was cut pretty deeply. In my distress, a good friend challenged me to read and concentrate on Psalms 147:3. It's a pretty significant passage:

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds..."

Many of us, though we may not always admit it, are harboring some sort of pain. Whether it's a small cut or a deep wound, we've all experienced hurt on some level. Pains come in all different forms and degrees. It just depends on the person and the circumstance.

Let me ask you: Who's responsible for making our pain go away? Is it the people who inflict the pain on us? Oh, if it were that easy! The truth is: as the ones being hurt, we hold the most responsibility for making it go away. We are the ones responsible for walking to, opening, and stepping through the door of healing. The problem is: many of us (myself included) try to find too many excuses not to walk through the door, largely because we're afraid to see what's on the other side. I think that we start to believe that the wound really wasn't all that bad in the first place or that the scab on our wound is good enough to stop the bleeding. We've shed enough tears. We've done enough healing. We're OK!

But, little do we realize, we're only bottling our hurt, we're not eliminating it. By not dealing with our pain -- especially the deepest, most devestating parts of it -- we are seriously compromising the healing that God wants us to have. Sorta reminds me about how Tylenol works. It's a pain reliever not a pain killer.

In order for us to experience absolute healing, we must give our problems, our pains, and our circumstances to God, the ultimate pain killer. As the passage I cited earlier says, God can fix the brokenness in our lives. He knows -- with exact certainty -- what we need to overcome the hurt that we experience. But, the only condition is: we have to allow Him to work...without us playing the role of the "backseat driver". From what I've been told (and from what I've sort of experienced myself), this process can actually be just as painful as the original hurt we feel. So, many times we avoid involving God as much as possible. That's when things go even further south.

As Christians, we must remember that in order for God to let loose His healing on us, we must first deliver our pains to Him. Also, we must be willing to accept His presciption -- no matter how bitter the pill is or how expensive we think it is. God is the one with framed diploma on the wall; not us. He's the one who graduated from medical school with flying colors, not us. He's the certified M.D. Not us.

The Doctor is in. No appointment needed...

- ACL