As Christians we sometimes find ourselves refusing to show God’s love to people because of the right we have seemingly given ourselves to cling to our pain.   Someone hurts us and we cling to the brokenness inside us rather than to God; we turn the brokenness into an idol.  When we refuse to forgive those who have hurt us, when we refuse to show mercy and grace to those who we have unjustly declared unworthy, we are depriving people of the chance to see the character of God. Instead, we are showing them the selfish, sinful nature of ourselves.

This doesn’t just apply to when other people hurt us, this applies to every kind of brokenness. God wants to take our brokenness and turn it into a powerful testimony to further His kingdom, but how can He do that when we are hoarding our pain?  We hold onto the pain, opening the wound again and again, to remind ourselves of how untrustworthy people are or to drown in our little pool of self-pity.  By doing this we are saying that Christ’s death wasn’t needed, we don’t need healing, we are perfectly fine in our state of brokenness.  But we are called to live a much bigger life, we are called to be free from the chains of sin and the hurt that comes with it, but we won’t have that if we cling to pain. But if we let go, if we stop being selfish, God can close the wound, He can sew it tight with His hand, and it can turn into a beautiful scar, a sign of His healing. He turns the darkest of nights into a beautiful sunrise and then we can show our scars to those with wounds and give them hope in the ultimate Healer.

When we allow Him to heal us, we find we can forgive others, we can be merciful and graceful to them, because we have let go of our selfish ambitions and our focusing on our Creator and His beautiful creation rather than ourselves. It is then when our stories being to glorify God, it is then when we can then love them like God does, see people through His holy eyes rather than our sinful eyes, we can see the brokenness in others and point them to the cross rather to themselves, to the way of healing, because by HIS wounds we are healed, not ours.
Please share. Someone in your life may need this message.

“But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5