“Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him, If you
scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home, You'll be
able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and
fearless. You'll forget your troubles; they'll be like old, faded photographs.”
(Job 11:13-16 MSG)
As long as you
focus on someone you resent, that person controls you. You're worrying about
something he or she has already forgotten about.
Long before
psychology came along, Job said there are three steps for inner healing:
1. Put
your heart right. If you want to
be emotionally healed from a hurt, you have to release the offender — whether
you feel like it or not. Don’t try to get even. Forgive that person, and then
release him or her.
2. Reach
out to God. You need to invite
Christ to come into your life and fill you with his forgiveness. Why? I don't
think you can manufacture enough forgiveness in your life to handle all the
hurts you're going to face, not only those of the past but those you'll have
between now and when you die.
Do you remember
the story of Corrie Ten Boom? She hid Jews in her apartment to protect them
from the Nazis during World War II. When they were caught, not only were the
Jews shipped off to the concentration camps, but Corrie and her family were,
too. Everyone in her family was killed in the concentration camps except
Corrie, and she endured torture and abuse. She later went back and met the
guards who had abused her, and she forgave them. You can't do that with human
forgiveness. You need God's supernatural power in your life in order to let it
go and be able to say, “It wasn't good. It wasn't fun. It was bad. But I
believe that God can bring good out of the bad, and somehow the rest of my life
is going to be the best of my life.”
3. Face
the world again. When we're
hurt, we're tempted to withdraw into a shell, put up a wall, and decide never
to let anyone else get close. You're really only hurting yourself when you do
that. Letting what happened to you in the past define your identity is like
driving a car looking into the rearview mirror. You're going to crash. You have
to face the future and resume living. It doesn’t matter as much where you’ve
been as it does where you’re headed.
Talk About
It
What hurtful
memory are you choosing to hold onto — something somebody said, did, or thought
about you?
Pray this prayer
today: “Jesus, I want my heart to be right. Please take this resentment out of
my life. I choose to forgive [this person]. Help me to face the world again.
Help me to focus on you in the future. Replace my pain with your peace. Replace
my hurt with your healing. Replace my bitterness with your love. In Jesus name.
Amen.”
This devotional ©2012 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by
permission
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