Series: Healing For Damaged Emotions
#1 Damaged Emotions
Jan 11, 2009
All of us carry deep within us dark secrets and scars that control our behavior, our relationships, and our attitudes. No one really knows what goes on behind the closed doors of our hearts and souls. The irony is that most often we don’t know it ourselves.
Those scars come from experiences that we have had, most often as children, which shape and form us in our adult life. While many of those childhood experiences are good, just as many are painful experiences that can wreak havoc on our behavior and how we related to other people as well as our worldview.
There is the boy who just doesn’t measure up to dad’s expectations on the football field. The girl who becomes a sexual plaything for the boys of her family. The young boy accosted in a public men’s room. The 4th grade girl teased because she smells. The 1st grader who stutters. The 7th grader who is later in puberty development. The 3rd grade overweight girl who gets called “lard face.” The list unfortunately is limitless. All of us carry the scars of our childhood. Some of us have a lot more scars and worse scars than others. No one knows what goes on behind the closed doors of our hearts and souls, and yet those emotional scars often have a large impact and control over us.
We embark on this series of the Healing for Damaged Emotions. This topic was introduced to me while I was a student at Asbury College by the pastor of the Wilmore UMC, Dr. David Seamands. He was a gifted counselor and preacher and he preached a series of sermons on this topic, and I still have the notes I took from that series. It has since become a published book and I am going to use Dr Seamands’ book as a springboard for us to explore this very important topic for those of us who claim the name of Jesus.
Let me confess that I embark upon this journey with some fear and trepidation knowing that some Christians believe that this area should and ought to be off limits. I also know that some Christians believe that all answers to life are found in the spiritual realm, ie you need to pray more, read the Bible more, fast more, commit your heart and life to Jesus more and all these “issues” will go away. I also know that this series will for some of you open some deep wounds, and will bring to your consciousness that which you have worked hard to bury deep in your souls, and all this might be quite disturbing. I also know that some of you just might vent your personal anger at me for “ stirring things up” and “not leaving well enough alone.” So with all that in mind we forge on endeavoring to discover for ourselves our personal healing for the damaged emotions that each and every one of us has.
In my observation, Christians can be basically classified into 2 broad categories. There are those who exude confidence, boldness, and who are “more than conquerors through Jesus Christ.” They have it all together, never yielding to temptation, living in constant victory over sin and guilt. They are admired and the envy of young Christians far and near. The problem is that these Christians are generally not being honest before God nor other people. The reason is that they have this idea that Christians are never to show any signs of weakness or defeat, nor have any problems whatsoever. So their lives become a façade, a kind of hypocrisy. They mistakenly believe that as a Christian they are suppose to be perfect in every way, and they often spiritualize everything blaming God for every good and bad that happens. They simply are not being honest with God, with themselves and with others, and consequently their walk falls far short of their talk.
The other group of Christians is those who do all the right Christian things—pray without ceasing, tithe, attend worship regularly, are involved in ministry, and are constantly in the Word. Yet they are always defeated, living at the mercy of the afflictions, emotions, and of life in general never seemingly able to overcome or be victorious in anything as if some hidden demon is undermining all they do.
In his letter to the Roman Christians Paul speaks to this issue of infirmities, or human weaknesses. I am aware that some churches categorize our human infirmities as sin, but we as Wesleyan Christians are clear to delineate the difference between willful sin and human frailty. Often times this lack of distinction leads some people to believe that initial salvation, justification, the new birth and being saved is all that is needed in a person’s life. They comment with things like, “If we could get him saved, then…” “If she would only accept Jesus, then…..” The underlying idea is that being saved is the end all and be all of everything that is not good.
Indeed it is true that the new birth makes us right before God. We are not the same when we say “yes” to Jesus. It does change us from the inside. It is often the “outside” that needs further work—the infirmities as Paul calls them. Please note that Paul in the context of Romans 8 is speaking about the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life. Earlier Paul had written about our spiritual nature versus our carnal, earthly nature, and the conflict between these two natures. So the work of the Holy Spirit begins in our lives when we accept Jesus as Savior. Many stop right there and believe that is all there is, but the Holy Spirit just begins the work of shaping us into the image of Christ and that includes dealing with our infirmities.
The image I often use is that as Christians our lives are like a pristine lake. You’ve seen photos of the kind of lake I imagine—idyllic in every way. But what lies beneath the surface of that lake? This is where the Holy Spirit works in the Christian’s life. Beneath that idyllic surface, down in the muck and mire of the bottom of that lake is all kinds of garbage—life’s junk like car tires, beer cans, barrels of used oil, bottles of old cleaning solutions, fertilizer run-off, old tree stumps. Down beneath the surface of our idyllic Christian lives is all kinds of life’s junk…the deep wounds, the hurts, the cuts, the put-downs, the disappointments, the broken relationships, that divorce (your or your parents), the druggie dad, the alcoholic mom, the insecurities, the envies, the resentments, the bitterness, the pain, the anger! This is the stuff that infects and influences our attitudes, our actions and reactions, our behavior, our priorities, our marriages, our work, our witness, our ministry, and our life together as God’s people. This is where the rubber of the Holy Spirit meets the Christian walk. Accepting Jesus into your heart and life in and of itself doesn’t deal with these deeper issues of the heart and soul. It takes the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit to remove the putrid stench of the spiritual pus infecting the depths of our being.
All during Advent and Christmas and our Grinch series, we emphasized the importance of guarding and enlarging your heart. That series sowed the seeds for the specifics of healing the heart that we are guarding and attempting to enlarge. Our standing before God changes at the new birth, but the new birth does not deal with these issues of emotional health immediately. The healing of damaged emotions is a post-new birth work of God’s Holy Spirit.
We need to understand this for 2 reasons: 1. so that we can be patient with ourselves allowing the Holy Spirit to heal our own damaged emotions, and 2. so that we would be more patient with other Christians, offering them grace and mercy rather than condemnation and judgment. The reality is that Christians are imperfect people operating their lives out of their own damaged hearts that leads to contradictory, confusing, and inconsistent behavior. The old saying is so true for us: Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet! Please understand that this does not allow sinful behavior, abuse of authority, or blatant lack responsibility on the part of believers. Not at all, because we are still held accountable to one another and to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But when we understand that each of us operates out of our own brokenness and wounds, then grace, mercy and patience is more easily afforded to one another.
So while the Holy Spirit is at work healing our damaged emotions, so we sit back and let the dredging begin? Not at all because we do have a part to play in our own healing. And here it is.
First, face your problem squarely with moral fortitude and courage in absolute honesty. Admit it to yourself and to a trusted Christian friend. James 5:16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that you might be healed.”
Second, accept your responsibility in the matter. You may have been the victim and not at all at fault, but what you do with that and how you respond to that hurt, is totally in your hands. Don’t play the blame game that is so prevalent in our society today that it is always somebody else’s fault. You will never receive emotional healing until you accept responsibility for your response and reactions to your pain.
Third, ask yourself if you really want to be healed. Do you really enjoy the benefits of your hurt and pain? Are you using it to get attention, sympathy, financial reward, or maybe retribution against someone?
Fourth, forgive any and everyone who is involved in your hurt. Jesus makes it plain that no healing can occur in your life unless you are able to forgive those who have done evil against you.
Fifth, forgive yourself. It is ironic how people accept God’s forgiveness but are unable to forgive themselves. Years ago I heard someone say, “If God forgives you, who do you think you are not to forgive yourself? Are you greater than God?”
Sixth, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what your real problem is, and how you need to pray. Sometimes it takes a human counselor to help us understand the problem, or maybe the Spirit will use a verse or story in the Bible. Maybe an experience will bring about an “ah-ha” moment. There’s a story about Henry Ford and Charlie Steinmetz. Charlie was dwarf, deformed and not pleasant to the eye, but he was one of the world’s greatest minds in the field of electricity. One day the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan came to a halt. No one could get the plant up and running, so Henry Ford called in Charlie Steinmetz. This genius puttered around the generators for a couple of hours, and then threw the switch and Ford Motor Company was back in business.
A few days later Henry Ford received a bill for $10,000. Ford returned the bill to Charlie Steinmetz with this note, “Charlie, isn’t this bill a bit high for only a few hours of tinkering around those motors?” Steinmetz adjusted his bill and sent it back to Henry Ford: “For tinkering around the motors: $10. For knowing where to tinker: $9,990.” Henry Ford paid the bill. The Holy Spirit knows exactly where to tinker and He knows exactly what we need to experience our own inner, emotional healing.
Do you want to be healed? What is it that is poisoning your heart and soul? What is it deep within you that sabotage your relationships? What is it that is robbing you of God’s peace and the fruit of God’s Spirit? What is it that Satan is using to accuse you and keep you bound by sin and nature’s night?
Let God’s healing waters and balm heal you from the inside out.