Get The Word On Your Wounds + ”Thoughts For the Road”
“Thoughts For the Road” is the closing “chapter” of Unedited: Hope and Healing Through the Simple Habit of Bible Reading and Prayer.”
Download the Get The Word On Your Wounds + ”Thoughts For the Road” audio/episode here.
Thoughts for the Road.
“…He sent His Word and healed them.” Psalms 107:20
“He has sent me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison to those who are bound…to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn…to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…” (Prophesied of Jesus in Isaiah 61:1-3)
In closing this book there are so many things I’d like to say, but above all, my desire is to convey one clear message: HOPE. I can assure you that God’s will is to heal your heart, just as He’s been healing mine. Healing broken hearts was part of Jesus’ mission. He loves to take lives from every corner of society and reform and repurpose them from broken places into beautiful places. Truly, He wants to give “beauty for ashes.”
With all of that said, Bible reading and prayer will not be a “quick fix.” They are not a “magic formula” or “secret potion.” They are components of the journey of healing, which must begin with salvation. From the point of salvation, we move into a pursuit of Jesus through His Word and our prayers. Don’t merely seek healing, seek Jesus. Don’t seek intellectual knowledge about the Bible, seek the One who is the “Word made flesh.” (John 1:14) Don’t seek the supernatural or the miraculous, seek Jesus. The fact is, healing and miracles are a natural by-product of WHO He is. As you seek Him, He will bring revelation of His Word that intellectual pursuit alone cannot, and healing will follow along behind. Seek Jesus for Himself.
One consideration about the Word of God is that it is teeming with potential. Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15, and said, “…and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able* to make you wise for salvation...” The Scriptures are ABLE…IT IS POSSIBLE. The Word of God holds all the potential for us to be saved and subsequently healed, but knowledge is not enough. The knowledge acquired must be mixed with faith, and faith will always lead to obedient response. It is in the acts of obeying and humbly submitting to the Word of God that we find first, salvation, and secondly, healing. These, in turn, will bring peace of mind, contentment, joy, a deep love we’ve never known before, and more, but it is all predicated on responding in faith to what we read in the pages of Scripture. They are “ABLE to make you wise unto salvation…” They are jam-crammed, overflowing with potential. You and I, and our response, will be the determining factors. Our response to the Bible will decide its ability to “produce” salvation, growth, and healing in our lives.
In addition to saving and healing you from pain, the Word of God can KEEP you FROM pain. Much of the pain we experience in our lives is from the consequences of poor, self-willed decisions. Not only do I believe the Bible has incredible healing power, I believe it has incredible preserving power. As the old adage goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The Bible is cure, yes, but so much more prevention. King David said, “How can a young person cleanse his way? By taking heed according to God’s Word.” Jude wrote in his tiny, New Testament epistle, “…unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…” I will not tell you that reading the Bible will keep you from ever sinning or making mistakes, but it will certainly help keep you from sinning and making costly, consequential mistakes. The Word of God ingested and obeyed before coming into times of trial, temptation, and testing is the very thing that will carry you through those times. I am not telling you the Bible will keep you from all pain, but, if heeded, it has the power to preserve you from avoidable pain: the pain of consequence, the pain of breaking brought by poor, selfish, and sinful choices. The Bible is not only medicinal intervention…it is powerful, preventative maintenance.
However, no matter how much “preventative maintenance” you internalize, you will face pain in life. Ernest Hemmingway said, “The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” [142] It’s true…life breaks us all. Each one…at some point…in some way.
We are broken because we are fragile. You are fragile. I am fragile. Humanity is fragile. Fragile is “easily broken or damaged,” according to the dictionary. [143] That is each one of us…every human that dots the face of this planet. Life is fragile. Our health is fragile. Relationships are fragile. And God knows that. Psalm 103:14 states: “For He knows how weak we are; He remembers that we are only dust.”
The “strongest” person you know, on the best day of their life, is still fragile. We are all one phone call away from heartbreak. We are all one moment away from loss. We are all one moment away from diagnosis…regret…that irrevocable decision. We are all one breath away from death. We are all walking the fine line between time and eternity….one step between this life and the next. That makes each of us fragile…delicate…easily broken.
We can be broken by angry words or by no words, disappointments, divorce (ours or our parents), abuse, loss, grief, absent or preoccupied parents, depression, the negativity and sadness of the culture, the lack of answers for all life’s questions, the “mean kids” in elementary school, the “mean adults” in our grown up lives, the words that reverberate through our mind and left wounds that nothing can seem to heal, and on and on and on… the list could go on for pages. We all have or have had or will have the things that break us. Sometimes at the hand of another, sometimes at our own hand, and sometimes simply because of life.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “…but we have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Earthenware is fragile. Easily broken. Yet that is just the sort of place God chose to store treasure – the treasure of His light, the treasure of His love, the treasure of His Spirit. Why? The end of the verse explains: “…that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.” It’s not about the vessel…it’s about what’s inside. Not only is earthenware fragile, but it’s also generally inconspicuous. God chose to put His greatest treasures in the most fragile and ordinary places.
You are fragile and God values your fragility, your frailty, because He values brokenness. He doesn’t value brokenness simply for the sake of breaking us, but for what brokenness has the potential to produce in our lives: depth of soul, character, humility, compassion, empathy, and especially, dependence upon Him. These are just a few of the many effects brokenness has in our lives. The effects produced in a life through brokenness remain long after God heals the things that caused the brokenness and produced the pain. Our pain, when handled properly, is temporary, but the results of what it produces are permanent. And these permanent qualities in a life are beautiful.
YES…you are fragile…you are weak…you are easily broken, and, yet, you are STRONG. You are tenacious. You are resilient. You do not have to be a victim. You have what it takes to be an overcomer. You possess full potential to display the indomitable human spirit. You have the image of a great God imprinted on every last strand of your DNA. You have dreams and hopes that He wrote into your soul when He formed you in the womb. You are full of potential and possibility.
It is, however, the admission of our weakness, our own frailty that opens the door to true strength. “When I am weak, then I am strong” (Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:10). In our weakest places, He has the opportunity to reveal His greatest power. Admission of our weak, our frail, our fragile, our broken is like a giant magnet that draws Him to us. Confessing our sin and our brokenness invites Him to come in and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
“The Lord is near to them that are of a broken heart…” Psalms 34:18
“He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3
Healing “broken” is one of the things that Jesus does best. He wants to heal the raw, stabbing pain of fresh wounds and the low, dull ache of old wounds. He wants to heal both heartbreak and heartache. He wants to heal the fragile, tender places, and the crushed, “ground-to-fine-powder” places. As you grant Him access to your heart, you’ll find the pain beginning to dissipate, His strength overwhelming your frailty, and in the end, you’ll find that your brokenness was the backdrop for His strength and restorative ability. You will find that you are strong at the broken places.
These are just a few thoughts for the road. I pray you choose hope. I pray you go grab your Bible and a notebook. I pray you choose to begin today on the road from grace to glory.
Thank you for joining me for this journey!
Go grab your Bible and your journal!
I look forward to the power of this habit in your life. This is Unedited.