17
Mar '18
Daily Devotion: HOLY PEOPLE HURT TOO
17
Mar '18
How are you really doing? I know you’re blessed and highly favored but I’m asking you about your condition, not your position. Blessed and highly favored is our spiritual position — depressed, stressed and a mess is our condition. Do you ever get the feeling that as Christians, we need to tell people how the Spirit is doing when they ask us how we’re doing instead of how our soul is doing?
We’ve created an underground culture of suffering, all because we think we need to hide our hurt from other Christians. The devil is a liar! We don’t need to play the, “I’m always OK game,” with people who aren’t always OK. One of the most intimate moments we will ever share with Jesus and the people we love is when we’re capable of being vulnerable about pain.
As Christians, we must remember that we’re human, and if we let ourselves become emotionally constipated to appease or hide from people, or to deny our own humanity, we can make our condition worse. Hurt is caused by what happened, misery is caused by what we do about what happens.
Humble believers know that God understands what we go through and that we have nighttime’s in faith — “…Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
Put This In Your Spirit: Joy is a fruit of the spirit. Hurt is a reaction to what happened, not a cancellation of what we believe. When hurt overwhelmes us, we still have joy but we’re not smiling or grinning — because we’re hurt. If we didn’t have human reactions to human conditions, we would not be human. Even Jesus cried. If we try to play the super human game, we can cause ourselves a lot of trouble and even negatively effect our ability to get honest feedback or wise counseling. If we let our soul get backed up we can get messed up.
Psalm 23, tells us that God sees and desires to restore our soul: “He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul…(Psalm 23:2-3). Restoration follows devastation, and God is in the restoration business. Why would God need to restore our soul if our soul is never involved in accidents?
The bible reminds us that we’re made up of three parts: May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). We don’t need to pretend like one part is turned off, our soul, because we’re saved.
When we can hurt right, we can heal right. Our human condition is real — this is a faith walk not a cake walk (Matthew 26:41, Romans 7:14-25). Growing in faith happens when we grow through conditions that cause us to have to lean more on God. Let somebody know, we don’t meet grace when we read about it, we meet grace when our soul is too weak to fight (2 Corinthians 12:9).
When pain comes, human reaction to pain happens. Healing is not microwavable, we have to claim it before we feel it, and sometimes we have to talk it through in order to make it through — even argue our way with God sometims. Job said, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him” (Job 13:15).
We don’t have to suffer in silence or hide our struggles from each other — or God. Jesus cannot help us, people cannot help us (Hebrews 10:24), by masking pain. Our flesh wars with the spirit, and anybody who says that they’ve arrived and no longer battle the war within is self-deceived (1 John 1:8).
Through faith in Jesus, we have the power to heal, grow and recover. We cannot ignore, hide or fear the weeping that endures for a night (Isaiah 40:31, Romans 8:37) or be spiritually intimidated into silence. Sometimes it takes an overwhelming breakdown to have an overwhelming breakthrough but whatever our soul pain is, it is not a destination. It’s OK to have a breakdown but we cannot let ourselves unpack and stay there — our destiny is too important.
The next time you ask someone, “How are you doing,” ask with the intent and interest in knowing how their soul is doing, not how the Holy Spirit is doing — the Holy Spirit is always doing great. Their position is blessed and highly favored but the pain in their soul is their condition. Don’t judge them or their faith, be the light in their night.
Share and be blessed.
Join us every Sunday at the HILL in San Leandro, CA at 9:30AM. Ministering to the whole person for whole victory!
