Understanding Does Not Equal Healing

[snugsnug]

Understanding Does Not Equal Healing

Understanding does not equal healing. Clarity does not equal restoration. Many men understand their wounds, can talk about them with great clarity. They know what happened, what life was like with—or without—their father. Yet, they remain unfinished men, haunted by the memories, crippled by the wounds. The addictions remain, the fears remain, the lack of wholeness remains. And by the way, it doesn’t take a major assault like sexual abuse to create a broken heart. Many men assume they haven’t any real brokenness within because they haven’t endured the horrors they read about in the paper or watch on TV. Depending on the age or circumstances, it can be an embarrassing moment like stuttering in front of the class, or a harsh word from your mother.

Remember now—the human heart was designed to grow up in a world of love and security, a world where we are known and prized each and every day—a world very, very different from the world anyone actually grows up in, living now so far from Eden. The heart is a tender thing and easily broken, especially when we are young. That is why Jesus offers to heal the brokenhearted:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners. (Isa. 61:1 NIV)

Exactly how God comes to heal the human heart is deep mystery, but it works something like this: He will often arrange for some event to make us feel just as we did when we were boys and our hearts were broken. Feeling again what we felt then, or perhaps suddenly a memory surfaces, we have an opportunity not to push it away, or run to the refrigerator, or get angry at someone (however it is we typically handle these emotions). Rather, we invite God to come to the broken place within us, come and find the orphaned boy within and embrace him. We ask the Father to come and heal our broken hearts, rescue the boy and bring him home. Perhaps this prayer can be a beginning.

O Father, yes—I need you. I need your love, need you to come for the boy within. Wherever he is hiding, whatever holds him down, come for him, Father. I give you my permission. I renounce the ways I, too, have rejected him, pushed him away. I want to see him restored. Come and embrace him. Let me know I am your Beloved Son.

[Red A.]

Amen.