Wednesday, August 5, 2015

APP FOR A HURTING HEART?


The problem with private pain is...it is private. Especially the heart kind. Seared deep in the soul, its looming-in-the-shadows presence smothers most attempts to shuck the pain, or deaden it. Too often those attempts are man made, be it drugs, gusto living (with its attendant complications), booze, or never stopping to smell the roses because we don't believe any exist in my weed patch.  Spiritual attempts - guilt induced (?) - often only make matters worse.  If you want to feel like a full blown spiritual failure, cast that painful burden on the Lord in the Throne room and when you hit the street again, find that heart burden still gnawing at your mind and heart.

The problem with a heart burdens lies in the fact they are deeply connected to our thinker. "As a man thinks in his heart so is he".  It is difficult NOT to think about what you know. A painful burden buried deep in the heart can surface in our thought processes when least expected or wanted. Hurting heart emotions are no respecters of our protective parameters of events, places, delights, or diversions created to offer a safe retreat from the sting of our inner, secretive pain. Such emotions will doggedly make their untimely, unwelcome appearances.

Can't someone come up with an APP for such issues? Our instant, punch a button and download the answer world would rush to your door step. I've heard all the pat answers that don't pat; the easy solutions that don't salute; the quick fixes that don't fix.  But either God's promises of peace in our problems and quietness of heart and soul when heart stuff grabs us are true or not. I choose to believe they are. I know and have experienced God being "nigh unto those of a broken heart... "  Those moments dealt mostly with my private pain and perplexity. God meets us in such times powerfully if we are willing to listen to His Words even when He tells us something we don't want to hear. That's where the "contrite spirit" comes in...the rest of that verse. Personal "hardening of the categories" is a spiritual disease raging among professed followers of Jesus. Kills the  healing, not the hurt.

"Bringing every thought into captivity to Christ" makes good preaching but difficult practicing.

Our Lord's personal agony was His own. Witness Gethsemane. His APP was His Father's presence. And not a nine second sound bite connection either.  My hurry is not His hurry. I'm learning that.