A Bruised Reed…

There’s probably not a single person reading this who has never experienced what it is “to hurt in your heart”….

For some it could have been a fleeting sense of simple day to day offence from friends or acquaintances that probably manifests as spells of anger or distancing yourself, which fades away in no time.. But to a few others, it could be a far more deep seated scar that you have chosen to keep within yourself for years. It could be areas in your heart that you have not dealt with. It could be the misjudged words of a loved one that wounded you, the false accusations and defamation caused by your closest circle, the betrayal of the one you trusted the most that cut through your heart, the heartless abandonment by the one who promised to stick by you through it all, Someone may have cheated and lied to you, it could be childhood memories of someone bullying or abusing you when you were defenceless and caused you to have a certain shameful image of yourself, Sometimes it could have been a sense of constantly emptying yourself for the wrong person who probably used your heart and emotions until a time that was convenient for them, or to be trapped in an intimate relationship with someone who constantly reminds you of how worthless you are, for a few it could be the repeated rejection of people and opportunities, when you feel like a complete failure, It could be an injustice at workplace, a humiliating job loss, a divorce, being oppressed by your enemies who plot against you or a irrevocable terrible loss of a loved one, loneliness, an unexpected miscarriage,a traumatic medical condition, a shameful illness that has sucked out all the hope in your soul..

..Do you feel like a bruised reed?

A bruised reed He will not break,

And a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.

In faithfulness; He will bring forth Justice. Isaiah 42:3

Do you know what “hurt” does to your soul?

What hurt can do to you, depends on how you respond to it. Yes, our hurt maybe justified and yes you don’t deserve it; but that doesn’t justify all our actions done in hurt. Knowing this was an eye opener to me. One thing that I did not realise in my teenage and early twenties is that the devil uses our hurts and scars as strongholds and as doorways into our lives. What?! How can this be true?

There are areas of vulnerabilities that are different for each person, through which the enemy finds access. The scripture says, Hope deffered makes the heart sick. If we allow ourselves to respond in the flesh, an offended heart breeds suppressed anger, bitterness and unforgiveness. Sometimes it even causes us to be easily irritable and lash out harshly to our family members. We are all sinners and just because someone else sins differently than us, doesn’t give us the power to withhold forgiveness from the one who has wronged us. You will be mistreated, You will be spoken poorly of, You will be betrayed, You will be used and thrown, You will be abandoned, You will be misunderstood, You will be wronged, You will experience all kinds of injustices. Forgive Anyway! Do not be overcome by evil; but overcome evil with good.

An unforgiving heart causes the love of God in our hearts to grow cold. And before we even realise, it numbs your sensitivity to be understanding and forgiving like Jesus is to us. An unforgiving heart forgets to be humble. This can eventually distance you from God Himself. There are some who turn their backs on God simply because their pain has become so overwhelming that the rejection and abandonments of others and their own brokenness push them away from God, instead of towards God.

What started off like a brief phase of lesser time in prayer and bible reading because of a baggage of vexed sighs, slowly drives us to unconsciously seek comfort in sources that gratify the flesh to find consolation and escape, some seek loud music to silence their thoughts, addictive gaming, alcohol, drugs, sex, compromising on the things that displease God and desperately seeking love from the wrong people, or even set out on travel adventures to escape reality. Each of us have our own escapes and I am guilty of my own set of things that I did as well. Eventually the very thought that I have become distant from Jesus and that I am constantly failing Him, literally ripped my heart even further. I craved for peace. I would yearn desperately to return back to the depths of Jesus’s love but I felt I was unworthy of it and would be rejected by God. I couldn’t be in peace with myself or in peace with God and I would further distance myself to escape the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I would spend many tormenting nights in tears that wet my pillows, crying out to Jesus but would wake up in the morning and continue hopelessly. As much as I longed for the former intimacy with Jesus, I was too caught up in my wounds and the heartless injustice that some did to me. Some of the primary assignments of the devil are against our minds. What started off as a bruised reed became a smouldering wick. I used to shine with zeal like a torch for His Kingdom and it was the devil’s plan to use “hurt” as a doorway to rid me of my identity in Christ; as a doorway for many other sins that eventually led to overbearing guilt that caused my spiritual flame to flicker like a smoldering wick…

My sin was great; His love was greater. What can separate us now?

If there’s anyone who can relate to this, I want to tell you that the only way out is to see yourself the way Jesus sees you! Our saviour assures us in Romans 8:30 that He is the one who predestined us from our mother’s womb, He called us as His very own; He Himself is faithful to justify us as righteous through His blood and thereby glorify Himself in us. A smoldering wick, He will not sniff out….!!

God does not see you, the way man sees you. Jesus sees how much your heart longs for Him. He will pursue you with a reckless love until He pulls you back into His fold. You may have fallen far from grace; but never so far that His grace cannot reach you. And “Those who have been forgiven much; Love Much!”

Why was this path allowed?

I recall the times when I have helplessly cried out to Jesus for mercy when I walked through some of these seemingly hopeless situations, bombarding Him with so many questions on why any of this had to happen in the first place? Have you forsaken me Lord? Jesus, Have you forgotten the one whom you loved? Why was this path allowed in the life of your child? Desperately pleading Him to rescue and deliver me from certain situations and to save me from that aching heart that I couldn’t save myself from. At the end of such breathless prayers in sobbing and weeping in closed rooms, I would experience nothing but an “unexplainable silence in my soul”, like I’ve told it all to my father!

“There’s no disease that Jesus cannot heal, there’s no brokenness that Jesus cannot mend, No trouble he cannot carry. Jesus is our soul salve. The Balm of Gilead. The wounded healer who touches our wounds with His; and absorbs all our hurt into His healing heart!”

Most times, His immediate response is to all of a sudden silence the depressing thoughts that battle in your mind to bring forth consolation. I have felt like a thick blanket of heaviness being lifted from me and my mind would just feel lighter in His presence. Beloved, Be assured that the prayers that you do in such desperation and helpless tears, directly reaches the tender heart of God at His Holy throne room in heaven.

You keep track of all my sorrows, you have collected all my tears in your bottle; You have recorded each one in your book.Psalm 56:8

Holy Spirit, Our Most loving comforter not only gives you peace but begins to then slowly lead you in all “truth” and “teach you to walk in the paths of righteousness” to answer the unanswered questions in your heart and teach you some of the spiritual secrets that is unseen to human eye….

Some of the answers that the Holy Spirit began revealing to me are:

Disobedience and Rebellion: The sad irrefutable truth about experiencing hurt is that we often tend to have thoughts that circuit around our pitiful state. Sometimes, You just replay the offence and injustice over and over and over again in your heart… But remember, “The offended heart is a breeding ground of deception”. Could it be that this hurt has made you lose sight of the SIN, the disobedience, the presumptuous rebellion, the taking for granted of His warnings and grace; that landed you in the situation that you are. Could it be a small yielding to fleshly pleasures compromising on integrity that you thought would do you no harm, could it be a lie that you had to tell, could it be an ambition that you didn’t mind compromising your values for, or could it be that you valued your emotions and desires more than the will of God for your life? Could it be that we often forget that we cannot escape the painful consequences for every disobedience towards God?

Were you like Esau? Did you sell your birthright/ heavenly inheritance of salvation for a momentary pleasure that was like a bowl of food?

I am not concluding that ALL of life’s painful paths are consequences of our sins and straying away from the holiness that our Heavenly Father expects from his child; but we can’t deny the fact that few of us will-fully walked into some of these situations without making sure that God was with us in that decision.

Sifting of your faith: But How about, if your walk with the Lord was upright and yet you feel seemingly forsaken by the Lord?!

Last month, I was in Bangalore spending a couple of days at my favourite aunt’s place. I talked to her about certain life experiences and how much I love and long for Jesus, of how much I miss Jesus and of how I felt like Jesus was being “silent” towards me and that I haven’t heard from Him in a while and that I desperately needed to hear from the Lord about things that I wanted to talk only to Him about. With the strongest affirmation possible, She stood up from the bed and said “Jesus will most certainly answer you and talk to you personally about everything that’s in your heart”. I fell asleep that night with a deep sigh. Two days later, My darling husband gifted me with a book called “Visions from Heaven” written by Wendy Alec, the founder of GodTV. Wow!! This book was such a huge surprise and the most life changing book that I’ve ever read. It’s one book that you cannot read without tears rolling down your cheeks, as you can read the heart of Jesus in the words of this book. It actually felt like Jesus was personally talking to me about the things in my heart. Wendy explains how she saw a vision of satan standing before the courts of heaven with huge records of those who are very intimate with Jesus and walking uprightly with the Lord. He challenges their faith like he did with Job and challenged the Lord that we will fail God when we are tested with such difficult situations in life. Our enemy, the accuser stands before Our Father’s throne and challenges God that His children will surely deny and walk away from God when we face injustice, terrible loss of relationships, loss of possessions, illness and hopelessness and experience a sense of God’s abandonment. His intent is to make us reject God when we feel abandoned by God. Although we may feel like we are alone in life’s trails, God promises to never leave us nor forsake us. All our “tests” will be turned into “testimonies” when we come forth faithfully. The key to hold strong in faith during such hopeless situations is to have an unshakable understanding of God’s heart and His unchanging, faithful love for us! You will certainly overcome by the strength that you draw from Jesus and then be prepared to raise up many others who have been where you have been. Once the testing phase is over, Remember He is a God who restores double fold for everything that was stolen from you.

It’s only in the fire that you see the true condition of your heart–

The heat of such fierce situations, separate the impurities and sinful nature that is in you from the character of God that is in you.The acid test will separate a diamond from a fake one and will reveal the true condition of your heart. It will separate the ones whose heart truly loves God from the ones who call Him only from their lips for the things that they can get from Him. When we squeeze an orange, it oozes with Orange juice and not poison. For if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, what’s in us will flow forth through as a fountain of life. What fruit do we display, when we are pressed by the weight of the situation? It is during the tough times that the Holy Spirit builds and strengthens the characters of Love, patience, kindness, forgiveness, long suffering, faithfulness, meekness, gentleness, self control and a deep repentance for the wrongs that probably I myself have done to hurt others during my brokenness; unlike those who harden their hearts and selfishly justify their wrong doings. It’s in the furnace that our characters are sanctified and brought forth as pure gold before God.

So consider it joy to be put through the process of purification and transformation into the likeliness of our Holy Father; Obedience almost always brings pain before it brings pleasure. Because at the end of it, there’s no greater joy than to realise that you have done the right thing!

Now that you have a better understanding of why we face tough times and how you can positively respond to it, The time will come when God will act on our behalf to bring forth justice…

What will Jesus-Your Chief Advocate do for you?

The Holy Spirit is constantly interceding for us in the court room of heaven, Jesus is our chief advocate who speaks to our Father in our defence(1John 2:1). One thing I’ve realised through the storms is, if there’s something bothering your heart- The only person you should be talking to about it is Jesus! Don’t drain yourself out by trying to make your offender realise his/her mistakes, arguing your point, or even going to the extent of literally begging them not to hurt you, or filing a case in the court of law, demanding justice in your own might, escalating the issue or even talking about it to a bunch of other people who will eventually only worsen the situation. Remember that true wisdom is not found in man’s opinion; not even the opinion of the most spiritual man. It is found only in the word of God.

When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Mathew 6:6

Present your case to the saviour who laid His life for you on the cross. He will keep His life in line for you to save you and to bring justice for you. Jesus is the only one who truly sees all your thoughts and knows your every intention and motive. Jesus has a record of every injustice done against you, of every tear that you shed and of every trail that you overcame in faithfulness.

Beloved, Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” says the Lord.

Jesus expects us reflect His nature, to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who use you. Arrrrgh! I know hard that can be sometimes.. but, If you finding it difficult to let go and forgive someone, remember that your actual enemy is satan, the accuser. Choose wisely to pray for the souls of those who offended you and intercede for their forgiveness with the help of the Holy Spirit.Walk in love! Jesus knows what you went through and sees your sincere intent to please Him, He also looks keenly at your complete dependence on Him for your justice and will most definitely answer what you have prayed for in secret. In Faithfulness, He will bring forth Justice!!

This is probably the first time I’m being open and vulnerable in disclosing some of my very personal experiences in the hope to comfort atleast one person who needs it. As you read this, I pray that Jesus will reach out his finger into your hearts, to heal the vulnerable places of your mind and soul and to pour His salve over your unhealed wounds and scars. I pray that the oil of gladness wash over your souls in His presence. You are the beloved of His heart and He will never ever abandon you. He grieves over the pain that you have endured. Oh how tenderly He loves you. Jesus will certainly arise from His throne in zealous love to bring forth your Restoration and Restitution.

Warm Hugs and Prayers,

Cynthia