God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. We know well enough how to keep outward silence, and to hush our spoken words, but we know little of interior silence. It consists in hushing our idle, restless, wandering imagination, in quieting the promptings of our worldly minds, and in suppressing the crowd of unprofitable thoughts which excite and disturb the soul.
~François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by Whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. … For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 8
Oh beloved, it is true.
Each of us carries with us the wounds and scars of our lives. I know, for sure, that my stuff is not any more important than any of you reader’s stuff. It is not a fair measure on any front to try and compare the exquisitely valuable – even holy – ground of a human being’s story.
And actually, this is one of the most beautiful things about our stories. Our Infinite Friend and Father sees each one through a lens we have not yet developed. He sees our pain through an infinite focus and depth of field. Said more simply: He experiences each of our lives as though they were His, and as though they could be the only focus of His Great Love and Friendship, forever.
But… What does this mean?
Can we see it?
It means more than we ever dared to believe.
See, each of us to some degree, and many of us to a great degree, have been wounded by life. There are moments that have driven a ragged blade down into the depths of us. The wounds are near mortal. And often, before we expire, the wound has been torn open and foulness pushed further down into it through the dozens even hundreds of times we have been ignored and reviled, or abused, or cast down.
Something in us knows that we will not be running through the tape of the race He has set before us. We will be limping – or even crawling – across that finish line. We are a good soldier of the cross, and we even welcome the suffering as an opportunity to know Him better and share His Great Love with others… And still, we are mortally wounded healers.
BUT!!!!! How can this be good?
Read the passage. Don’t miss it. We are not beggars sitting outside of the house of G_d. We are, instead, the very sons of The Father of Creation, and brothers of His Son. And this means something. We are no longer beggars, bleeding to death on the floor of life. We are children who can come limping to our Dad and DEMAND that He fix us, heal us, and set us free.
Oh, the healing often does not look like we thought it might. Quite often, He simply enters (read, all of Him) into our wounds and leaves them open like a surgeon might to allow darkness and infection to drain. But, instead of letting our lifeblood drain away, He commingles His Blood with ours as a never-ending transfusion of life.
Instead of become self-contained again, we become decanter of His Life. Our wounds can (if we let them) flow clean with the very Blood that bought us Life some 2000 years ago. There is a deep beauty to this…
As we allow Him to enter fully, we begin to see that the transgressions against us are still horrid. They were wrong. But now, they have the chance to be redeemed in becoming the agent of others’ healing from their own wounds.
So, have you been hurt by life? Do you know Him? It is time for you to make a few demands of your Brother, Father, Healer and Friend.
Tonight is your night. You are a son or daughter of the King of The Universe. Let Him mix His blood with yours, that your wounds might heal many.
Every circumstance gives us the opportunity to think brilliantly about God, ourselves, and the situation we are in. The key is learning to think with Jesus and live from His mind, in order to receive the upgrades available to us in these situations. No matter what is going on, there is only one way to think and only one thought to have in any situation, and that is the one Jesus is having.
~ Graham Cooke
