In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve.
- Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
Being wounded sucks. That was deep. Thank you , Captain Obvious. I know. It's ridiculous to have to state such a simple truth, but we need to remember that while it is true that being wounded sucks, it is also helpful to us and others. We can wish that it wasn't so, but wishing won't change it. Being wounded qualifies us for service. Spiritual life is different than military life where being wounded gets you sent home. In spiritual life, being wounded is the preparation for duty.
We want to avoid it, the suffering and injury that makes us wounded servants. We want to be healed and restored so instantly and completely that we can't even remember the pain, like it is all just a fading dream. We don't want anyone to be able to look at us and see the scars. But if we want to be like Jesus, it is our scars, our stripes from the scourging of life, that bring healing to those we would serve and help.
I have seen vets post the story of a soldier in a pit suffering from the trauma of war with PTSD who has an officer, a psychiatrist and a preacher come by unable to really help. A fellow soldier jumps into the hole with the broken soldier and, when the man who is stuck asks why he did it since now they are both in the hole, he says it's OK, I know the way out. This story of the man in the hole was first told with an alcoholic in the pit and a fellow drunk showing the way of escape. I have also seen it with addicts. It can be told many ways, because there are all kinds of suffering and woundings that the best help comes from those who have been there too.
I have felt what you are feeling. I have struggled with those thoughts and fears and emotions. I have been in the hopeless Valley of the Shadow you're walking through. I know the way of escape, or at least enduring with increase.
Enduring with increase? Sometimes we can't escape, can't avoid, can't end or shorten the suffering, but we can go through it, endure it, in such a way as to increase in strength instead of weaken, increase in peace instead of confusion and fear, increase in love instead of bitterness, anger and hate, even increase in joy instead of despairing of life, and most of all, increase in relationship with Daddy instead of being stuck in the pit alone.
If there were never storms, we'd never see how God could take us through them. Even when our ship is busted into a thousand pieces, He can give life and protect our life and use our wreck to minister to the folks on the shore who can't believe we made it. When we're trying to get warm from the cold waters of the deep we were just pulled out of and a viper bites us, causing all the witnesses to say that God must really be mad at us and out to get us, we can shake the snake into the fire and say, no that's not what God is doing. Let me tell you about the One who comforts and loves and frees and restores, even when it looks like life is and will continue to be hell on earth, He made it worth living. See, what should have killed me didn't, and there is more to life than avoiding shipwreck and being bit.
Through our tears and sorrows and questions, our weaknesses take us to the place of reliance upon the One who is strong and has the power. If we never experienced hopelessness, we'd never know that we need hope, that we need someone to save us. If we were never wounded, we would never realize that we are dying without Him. And if we couldn't share that experience, strength and hope, if we couldn't display our scars and say, yes, I've been bitten and beaten and cut to the core as well, we could never point to the One who is our hope.
Now, I am not saying that only an alcoholic can help an alcoholic and only a soldier can help a soldier, like the story says. While there is some truth that the more closely our wounds relate to another the more we can help that person, there is more to it than that. The truth is that empathy alone is not enough, and I am as powerless to help and save you as I am to help and save myself. The soldier, the rape victim, the junkie and the drunk, the broken in whatever way, only God can save, only God can restore, and only God can give life that's worth living and so amazingly abundant that it can be given away. Those with the same scars can point the way to the Savior we all need, but we can't heal one another.
Still, I can't be as effective a help to someone who is watching their child wander in brokenness and playing the prodigal while it seems God doesn't hear the prayers on their behalf. I've never been there. I can point to my parents and say that they had to endure and pray for decades before they saw the fruit of that in my life, and they had to watch me OD, and go to prison, and want to die, and.....before they saw life. But I can't say that I've been in that parent's shoes. My mom and dad though can encourage that parent not to give up hope in a way that I can't.
That doesn't mean that I can't identify with caring for someone, fearing for someone, praying for someone without seeing immediate results. That doesn't mean that I can't point to the truth that Jesus is the answer, but someone else may be able to help that person more, while I can be most effective in the lives of those who have walked a road similar to mine, causing similar wounds and similar scars.
What I can't do, and what you can't do either, is walk through life without being wounded. And while we can be healed and restored and given a life that even death can't take away, we don't lose our scars. Even Jesus kept His scars after resurrection. Our scars identify us as people who have lived, who have experienced the misery and wounding of life, and as people who know there is One who heals. Don't regret your scars. They are the hope for the dying who can't yet see the Great Physician until they see His work.
Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment