there were times when I wept with joy at the grace that God shows towards us – and there were also when I wept with pain as I realised how much we must have hurt the heart of God. I pray others will find blessings in looking deeper into the pages of Job..
He will take your life’s circumstances; your hurts; your disappointments; your joys… and He will take your life-span and your life-situation to complete His good work in you – and you know what, He will do the same for me!
Energy doesn’t have emotions, and a mere power cannot be grieved or insulted – but when we do not yield to His guiding voice, we can hurt or even quench the Holy Spirit.
Rare Friendship
Do you have a friend that sticks closer than a brother? Do you have someone that loves you no matter what? Do you have a dear one that would even hurt you in order to help you?
Christ is the answer to each hurting heart, for the spilt blood of Christ alone can address each need and comfort each heart – the shed blood of Jesus alone can calm each cry and heal each hurt.
Laodicean Disinterest
I don’t think there is anything more destructive to the human soul than disinterest. I don’t think anything hurts a human heart more than a 'couldn’t care less' attitude.
I can permit Him to identify blockages in me, that prevent me from living as He wills – and I can allow Him to search deep within... to heal all hurts that I hide from others.
How? God knows, I don’t – but this I do know… He takes every pain and every sorrow… every hurt and every disappointment and He works it and molds to your greater testimony and to His own glory.
You know, it is so easy to talk about love, to pretend to love, to use the language of love, to sing hymns about love, and it can all be sentimental; perhaps we all know people who have told us that they love us, but very often they are the very people who have hurt us most.
Crafty Tool
Though designed to 'protect' our heart from being hurt again by fellow men, strongholds are the crafty tool that the enemy uses to crush our trust in God.
Surrendered Heart
Help and healing comes from total surrender of your entire being to the Lord..surrender of all and everything in your life – past present and future..surrender of all past, present and future hurt, guilt, pain, fear, doubt, and worry..
We suffer in many ways:- pain, wounds, hurts, sickness, disappointments, and more pain.
Weariness of body; sickness of mind; frustration of the soul, and hurt to the heart fuse together, and all combine to draw our attention and focus on self – self-interest, self-pity, self-indulgence – just self! Worries; angers; anxieties; vexations; disappointments and busyness of life…unite..
Times of past hurt; times of disappointments; times we call Last Night.
Poignant Memory
Sometimes a 'Last Night' is a memory of utter bliss – of precious joy, but more often those memorable 'Last Nights' are times of anguished hurt, followed by seasons of deep pain.
To be willing to accept crucifixion with Christ, to leave all yourself, your plans and your longings, your abilities and your possessions, all of them at the Cross, so that you only trust and love and live for the Lord Jesus, hurts a great deal.
Painful Intercession
An intercessor is rarely one that has not undergone much child training, and you know what... true intercession is painful; it hurts a lot.
Joys and Pain
When grief strikes – I pour out my hurt to Him. When joy fills my life – I thank Him for His blessings. When difficulties surface – I cast them on the Lord as instructed. When others are in distress – I lift them up into His heavenly keeping.
He has not only in His mercy forgiven us of our ugly filth and died to accomplish it, but He organised that we died with Him – so that we could never be hurt by death.
It is so easy to allow unworthy considerations to quench brotherly love, to be clogged up with resentment or to be wrongly influenced by our susceptibilities or hurt feelings.... We have to be active in positive cultivation of fellowship.
Are we who have been so beautifully, and so freely forgiven by the Lord – are we unwilling to forgive the ones that have wounded and hurt us so much?
He is the One, that can enable us to forgive those that wound and hurt and betray us –
allowing it to resurface periodically to our own harm and often to the hurt of others – hiding behind a mask of normality while unforgiveness burns in our soul.
Everything of sin results in misery, depression, hurt, pain and disappointment, while all that comes from God is good, pure, holy, just, gracious, and loving. This truth permeates the warp and weft of scripture… from beginning to end. “If our faith were but more simple, we would take Him at His Word..”
Best Plans
On a human level, our love for another may be real... so that my plans and my purposes be carried out and fulfilled for my benefit!! But on Christ’s plane, His love may at first hurt and wound and sting and lacerate, in order that HIS best plans and purposes are fulfilled for your ultimate good.
He prayed for those that despised and rejected Him. He prayed for those that hurt and abused Him. He prayed for those that grieved and murdered Him – and He loved those that loved Him not.
Prayer of Forgiveness
We too should pray for those that despise and reject us. We too should pray for those that hurt and abuse us. We too should pray for those that grieve and harm us – and we too should love as He loved. This is not mere choice.
Illustration of Forgiveness
There are some fragrant trees that bathe a sweet perfume… on the very axe that strikes them, and we too should show only sweet tender, forgiving love, to those that hurt or harm us; to those that grieve or pain us.
And in His love and mercy, He will take each painful hurt and every throbbing heart – and pour in His healing oil and His soothing balm.
One Answer
There is only one answer when faced with the troubles of life and His name is Jesus – and this He promised: I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men and women to Me to save and forgive and to heal the hurt.
To be prepared to discover areas within our soul (our life) that hurt or grieve Him, and permit Him to root out the puss within and to fill that empty space with Himself. Search me O God and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You. Psalm 139:3.
Broken Words
“I promise I’ll take you to the park tomorrow,” and then tomorrow comes and goes. “I’ll always be there for you, no matter,” then circumstances, feelings or life changes. How quick we are to believe that promise. How easy it is to break our word. How desperately hurt we feel.
It was then and only then – after what seems like a lifetime of unendurable hurt, that Job was enabled to 'see' God in the only way that God will accept… where self-worth, self-satisfaction, and self-help are of no effect to God – where self-righteousness gives way to Christ-righteousness.
Memorable Day
Today is my mother’s birthday. Her diaries catalogue showers of blessings amidst a mountain of difficulties. Today is my daughter’s wedding anniversary – her life also is peppered with deep hurts and trial and a cascade of Gods graces. My times also have had its deep pains and great joys and I am sure yours has too. Indeed, I know of no-one who has not been deeply affected by this world of sin.
Difficult Times
But most think that their hurt and their disappointments are greater than most.
For just as a gentle, controlled, thoughtful, or caring word can calm the troubled breast, bring hope to the hopeless, healing to the injured, or grace to an offender, so a harsh, hateful, cruel, or careless comment, can as easily be used to wound or discourage, hurt or hinder, harm or handicap, or speedily stir up strife and anger.
Sometimes we ourselves do not even understand what our secret hopes and hidden hurts are, but they become a thirst in our soul; a thirst that we cannot quench ourselves.
Indeed, we read in this precious verse that He has collected every single teardrop that has wet our lashes and recorded every single silent groan of our hurting heart, and He has placed each single tear in His bottle of remembrance and recorded each hurt in His book, because of His great love for each of His own.
All who are thirsty will be given the living water of life to drink. They will not be hurt by the second death, their souls will be refreshed, and the Lord will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
God, in His grace, has given us many precious blessings and has promised never to leave us nor forsake us, no matter how fiercely the bitter winds of trial batter our lives and irrespective of other people who may have betrayed or hurt us.
Sometimes we can be so distressed or disappointed; so angry or worried; so hurt or fearful that we miss the incredible blessing that God has organised in our very midst.
Like these two men, we too can become so distressed or disappointed; so angry or worried; so hurt or fearful by the circumstances of our own lives or the situation on the world scene, that we also miss the incredible blessing that God has organised in our very midst, for our eternal benefit and His greater glory.
And in this section he is seeking to comfort them in the pain they had to endure, and to re-establish their close communion and mutual love by commending them for their changed behaviour, and empathising with the hurt and suffering they had endured.
He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.
No-one who believes on Christ will be hurt by the second death, not even one - because the second death is that terrible Lake of Fire into which all the unbelievers, who have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God, will one day be cast.
He continues to revive our fainting soul and reinvigorate our sagging spirit, when we find ourselves wearied by the world's pressures or discover we are exhausted, hurt, anxious, or simply worn down in this troublesome life.
Jesus instructed us to pray for those that persecute us, while Paul reminds us that when we are cursed - we are to bless those that curse us, and when we are hurt - we are to heal.
May we be those who are careful with words, guard our speech, and use our word to heal and not hurt, to guard and not gossip, to edify and encourage and not to wreak havoc.
Truth hurts, especially when we try to justify our sinful choices, but the Bible makes it clear that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked - and when we yield to temptation and then try to make excuses for our own sinful choices - our defence freezes on our lips.
As children of God we are not appointed to wrath, because Jesus took the punishment in our place, so we will not be hurt by the second death - for we have been raised with Christ and our names have been enrolled in heaven, and by God's grace we have been promised a great reward.
No matter what form the chastening of the Lord takes, and no matter how much pain and hurt we may experience, His correction is always carried out in love.
Why does it seem easier to let the root of bitterness grow in our heart, rather than humbling ourselves, asking for forgiveness, and forgiving another who has hurt or wronged us?
But He also added words of great encouragement, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.Christ is in union with each of His children and He feels our hurt, He has empathy with the unfair treatment we receive.
Despite being his shortest letter, this epistle from Paul highlights the attitude that every one of us should have towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, even when they have wronged us, hurt us, or in any way abused us.
Despite all the suffering, pain, hurt, and distress that the prophet Jeremiah faced in life's school of affliction, the Lord was teaching him many lessons about the great faithfulness of the Lord and His never-failing mercies, which are new every morning.
Too often today we quickly react to the offences of others with caustic remarks or an unkind attitude against a brother or sister who has consciously or unconsciously offended us, hurt our feelings, or sinned against us.
He Who walked this earth and Who learned obedience by the things that He Himself suffered, is more than adequate to identify with our hurt and pain and to empathise with our sorrow and suffering.
Soon: They will not hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea, and the redeemed of Israel will walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD will return from their exile.