Series: Healing For Damaged Emotions
#12 God's Recycling Plan
June 21, 2009
In our series on Healing for Damaged Emotions we have traveled a long way in this journey to emotional wholeness and healing. We began this series likening our lives with the image of a pristine lake. Everything at the surface looks beautiful and serene without a care in the world. If we were to dredge up the bottom of that lake we would discover all kinds of trash and garbage from discarded bottles and cans, to old tires, some tree stumps, rusted pipes, dead fish, tangled lures of every shape, maybe even a sunken canoe or two.
This is the real picture of our lives because every one of us is damaged goods emotionally. No one escapes the trash and the garbage that lies at the bottom of our hearts and souls in the depths of our being. And so we have brought in the dredge named the Holy Spirit to clean out all the trash and garbage that has accumulated there over the years.
Why do we do this? Why don’t we leave well enough alone and just leave it all there? Because all that ‘stuff’ is keeping us from God’s best. All that stuff is polluting the lake and poisoning any life in that lake. The reality is that it is not obvious to most people because we hide it oh so well. The poison does its work slowly and unseen. It creates scar tissue, infects our blood system, and causes all manner of illness, brokenness, and disease.
This trash affects how we make decisions in life, what our priorities are, what our worldview is, how we handle money, how we handle relationships. If affects the way we worship and serve the Lord. Our bottom-trash affects our life-style, habits, our actions and our reactions. What is buried beneath the surface of our lives, determines the level of our joy and happiness, our success and fulfillment in life. If it isn’t cleaned up, it will eventually destroy us, our marriages, our kids, our families, and even our nation.
In our series we realized that we first have to acknowledge, ie confess, that the ‘stuff’ is even there. If we don’t, we won’t do anything about it and we will slowly die a spiritual death missing God’s best for us.
We have looked at some of the most obvious kinds of ‘stuff’ that we call damaged emotions like anger, depression, perfectionism, low self-worth, and guilt, and there is a multitude of more kinds of damaged emotions that we experience in our lives. The ultimate question is this: What are you going to do about your damaged emotions? Do you know that God recycles our damaged emotions and makes something good out of them?
This is the most important part of the healing of our damaged emotions because God transforms them from curses into blessings. He takes our damaged emotions, brings healing and wholeness, and then turns them into our good as well as for His glory. Dr. Seamands refers to this as “recycling” grace.”
In this Bible passage Paul describes this fallen, imperfect and suffering world in which we live. That is the reality, which we face each and every day we wake up and go about our lives. In this world evil has spoiled, scarred and disfigured God’s perfect creation. Paul describes the whole of creation, damaged by sin, looking toward the day of final and ultimate redemption. Every one of us is caught up in this dilemma that at times can only be described as “groanings too deep for words.”
The Apostle Paul also talks a bit about the work of the Holy Spirit who intercedes for us before God the Father. We see this is verse 26, “The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness (infirmities).” God doesn’t abandon us to the whims, fancies, and wiles of this world. Not at all! Remember Jesus Himself was the Wounded Healer who took our infirmities, our sins, our brokenness upon Himself. Why? So we might be healed! This is the purpose and work of the Holy Spirit. He is the Paraclete, the One who comes along side of us. The word ‘help’ in this verse is very important. It actually comes from 3 words put together into one, which means ‘to take hold of together on the other side.’ It is the Holy Spirit who can see our healing ‘on the other side’ of the crises or situation even before we do. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us to ‘the other side,’ the place where we are whole and complete, healed from our brokenness and weakness. In addition to knowing the outcome, or even point us in the right direction, the Holy Spirit actually comes alongside us and enters into our lives in order to bring about our healing.
The great news is that God loves us not because we are good, but because we need His love and presence in order to be good. Jesus died on the cross and took our sins upon Himself, not because we are good, but because we need His love and forgiveness to be good. The Holy Spirit comes along side of us not because we are good, but because we need His power to help us be good.
Paul goes on and reveals a great truth that at times we don’t even know how to pray “but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance to God’s will.” Paul is saying here that the Holy Spirit works in the deepest parts of our hearts and souls where the anguish of our hurts, pains, and brokenness lies deeply buried. They are so deep and painful that mere words cannot express them. This is where the Holy Spirit works to clean out all the trash and garbage. He healing Balm of the Spirit binds up the deep cuts, heals the broken spirit, brings forgiveness, repairs the damage, and pours over it all the soothing love of the Father. The Holy Spirit not only comes alongside, He enters in to do a major recycling project in the depths of our beings.
Romans 8:28 is an oft quoted and powerful verse, “And we know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Unfortunately this verse is often misused by very well meaning people. We hear it often, “Don’t worry. Don’t be upset. Everything always works out.” The truth is: It doesn’t! It doesn’t always work out and if fact can get worse. This is not a blanket promise to the entire world from God. This is a promise to specific people who meet 2 conditions. Who are these people? People who love God and who are called to God’s purposes. That means people who are in a love relationship with the Living God and who are walking the walk and talking the talk. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey me.” You can’t live like hell and you can’t live your life ignoring Jesus and then expect Him to work it all out. The gospel doesn’t work that way!
But for those who know Jesus, the promise is certainly for us. He not only takes the garbage and trash out of our lives and cleans up the inner lake; the Holy Spirit actually takes our garbage and trash and recycles it into something good!
When Paul prayed 3 times for God to remove ‘the thorn in his flesh,’ God told him, “My power shows up best in your weakness.” All too often we think we have to be strong and tough and powerful and that is the best way to overcome evil, Satan, the world and sin. We believe that God can only use our strengths and our victories. Paul said that there were only 2 things he could glory in: the cross of Jesus, hardly a time of strength and victory, and in his own weakness. God the Father took Jesus at his weakest point, the cross, and recycled it, changed it, transformed it into the power and strength of our salvation. God took Paul’s weakness and recycled Paul into a showcase of the Spirit’s transforming of hearts and lives.
God takes our wounds, heals and recycles them and turns us into a wounded healer, a healed healer whom God can use as His instrument of healing in other people’s lives so that in turn they can be healed helpers having their trash and garbage recycled as well.
Over these past months we have learned that much of our emotional damage began during early childhood. It was then and there that the seeds were sown that would eventually damage our minds and souls. Unfortunately for many of us much of that damage has been at the hands of our fathers.
Men, do you realize how much influence you have in your family and with your sons and daughters? I don’t think we really do. At our Easter men’s breakfast Cedric Brown, former Eagle, gave us one bit of interesting information that has stuck with me. He told us that when we win a child to Jesus, we have something like a 7% chance to reach the rest of the family. When we reach a wife and mother we have something like a 15% chance of reaching the whole family. When we reach the husband and father, we have something like a 93% chance of reaching the entire family. Guys, you hold the keys of eternal life for your entire family. You are the gate of wholeness, well-being, and emotional health of your wife and children.
How is it with your soul? With your own emotional health? Are you a wounded and healed healer?