Brokenhearted Part 2

Psalms 147:2-3 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. NIV

When I went to Louisiana in 1987 I was a broken man and confused.  I had attended Bible school for three years. In the past preached as teenager, seen people saved and healed. Other ministers prophesied about the great and diverse things I would experience in ministry.  But when I returned to the U.S that year from Nigeria, Africa all I brought back was dysentery and disillusion.  Not long after my return, I soon met with the anger of my father {nothing unusual} who basically told me to get out of his house.  I had purchased a 65 Chevy Chevelle for $500.00 dollars that year. So, I packed up what little stuff I had and was prepared to sleep in my car.  I had little help from a girlfriend and depressed everyone I talked to about my situation. I tried working Island Cab Service but I realized how little I knew about getting around the city in a car.  I tired sleeping on a church couch, they told me to go home.  Maybe I should have gone home. But my inner Bull-Dog had kicked in and I was going to make it on my own. A Brother from a church told me I could sleep in one of their apartments in Rosebank, in Staten Island. He had a mattress on the floor for me that was better than a car. However, I could not share it with the multitude of tiny reddish-brown roaches that were crawling on the same floor, so I could not sleep. Finally, a Jamaican lady and her family from a church in New Jersey that I had attended told me I could stay in her house.  I worked 17 hours a day at two different gas stations to make enough tuition money to go another bible college to finish my Bachelors. I was accepted to the school, put enough money together for a plane ticket and first payment on the tuition and left for Louisiana.  It is the red-badge of courage for me now. But it was a bleeding wound then.  I did not now that God was about to set me up for a life of ministry. He had to get me somewhere and he knew how to do it. There I would meet the best women in the world and would begin years of ministry.  I did not know that while I was going through that trial. But it all started with a broken life and heart.

God wants to build his church with the broken. Those that know what it is like to hurt are the best to show sympathy to a hurting world. Those people that are outcast and rejected by the world Christ are accepted by Jesus. Then he equips those very people to bring acceptance and inclusion to others. But first you have to admit you are broken to get fixed.

The Holy Spirit is here to preach good news to people who have been hurt and to bind up your wounds and heal hurts and broken hearts.  He wants to declare freedoms to people that are captives mentally and emotionally. Those that have been crushed, bruised and broken by tragedy Jesus will grant comfort or strength in a time of grief.  God often does special things for us to console us and help us He gives beauty for ashes, praise for depression and heaviness.  He makes us strong and magnificent like a tree.

Most of all, He will use you to rebuild other peoples ruined lives, after of course, he has rebuilt yours.   The bible talks about restoring the “devastation's of many generations.” That means that what bad things, abuses, evil words spoken, curses, rejection, and sometimes even sickness that  your family has experienced or even inflicted on you  can stop. The stuff that has happened for generations stops with you. You say no more!  I am healed through Jesus.  Then do the hard work of renewing your mind.  Stop saying I am German, and that’s how we are. I am Italian and that how we are. NO, you are a new person in Christ. “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” {Romans 12:2 Message}

The process starts with you Facing TRUTH —Jesus has come to reveal truth. The most important truth he reveals is about you! You may be a victim of what others have done to you in the past but now it’s time to step up and be a victor.  Stop blaming and bleeding and start believing!  In Isaiah 42:7 it says he wants to “open the eyes of the blind” that simply means Jesus gets people to face truth.  John 8:31-32 says “the Truth will set you free.”

Hidden wounds, hurts, sins, etc. can be like rotten food hidden in a refrigerator—you smell the stink but don’t know where it is coming from. Are you hiding because facing the truth is too painful?  Each area God want to set you free in will require facing or seeing “a truth” that doesn’t always (but may) bring pain.

Are you in denial? When you hide behind a doorway of pain (wounded emotions), you have to come back through that same doorway to freedom.  A lady once had a dream. Understand this woman had experienced sexual abuse by her own Father for years, She said,  in the dream I hid behind a door (locked door) to get away from the people hurting me; but awoke thinking, “I’ll never know when I can come out because they might still be there.”  She said, “You can separate parts of yourself from yourself. I separated the child in me because being a child was too painful.  

Do you want to be pitiful or powerful? It is important to resist self pity. A reason to feel sorry for yourself doesn’t equal the right to.  In II Corinthians 5:17—We are new creatures in Christ. In Philippians 3:13—One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to what lies ahead. IN Isaiah 43:18-19—Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. You can’t hide from the past; you must face it—but you can’t “camp” there. You must take Jesus’ hand and let Him lead you to “the new thing.”

God would not be showing you these things in your heart if he did not want to heal you. But you have to give them to him.  Allow him to heal your past.  A Negative past does not have to affect a positive future.  God heals broken hearts and build new lives. It is his specialty.

Trying experiences are the brick and mortar that God uses to build a new life!