What Are We to Do When We Have Self-inflected Wounds?
Good Morning Friends,
WARNING! YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS. Today’s devotional reminds me of my grandfather who had a glass eye he would take out and show us as kids as he told the story of walking into a towel hanger that popped out his real one. It reminds me of my dad who had a bad back because in his youth he wrestled deer and on multiple other occasions fell out of trees. Once with a squirrel attached to his tenders. We call them accidents but really they are self-inflected. So here is mine while it is fresh in my memory. A couple of days ago I was chopping out the roots of an invasive tree in our back yard to prepare the area to plant some fruit trees. As I was swinging the axe toward the root, the face of the axe ricocheted off the stump sending the axe blade on an alternate trajectory. The very very sharp bit cut right through my shoe slicing into my left foot and the heel of the blade sunk into my foot. Initially I thought I had been spared injury but then the blood started to flow filling my shoe to overflowing. I walked into the house leaving bloody footprints until I took a towel to bleed upon, rinsed out my shoes in the kitchen sink and shuffled my way to my bathroom shower to wash the wound. The blood flow in the shower was like the scene from the movie Psycho. Finally I got a good look at the wound and thought that Jesus must had a wound on his foot in a similar place. Then I glanced at the bathroom mirror into my bloodshot eyes and thought so this is what shock looks like. The adrenaline was flowing. Finally I got a compression bandage, elevated my leg up on the countertop and wrapped up the wound, got dressed and headed to the clinic to get a professional to take a look at the damages. I was thankful that no tendons were cut and no bones broken. More than several stitches latter I made it home to my family with a decided limp to begin the process of healing. They are caring for me but not so much that I get used to it. So this morning I am contemplating what we are to do when things get in the way of our plans? What Are We to Do When We Have Self-inflected Wounds?
Scripture: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:28-8:39 (NRSV)
Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:1-3 (NRSV)
Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.
Galatians 6:7 (NRSV)
and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Matthew 28:20 (NRSV)
Message: Today’s Psalm is about self-inflicted wounds. The Israelite nation was in captivity because of their own actions. They had no one to blame but themselves. So too with this wound in my foot. Certainly part of the problem is that though we all have made mistakes we usually are not too keen about admitting them.
So the point of me sharing my mistake with you now is to capitalize on any redeeming qualities the telling might engender in you. Yes I am trying to make lemons into lemonade. And perhaps something even better because though I want to put on a smile, the reality is that my foot hurts. So perhaps the point I am trying to make is not so much to grin and bear it, but to advise you not to let your guilt keep you from God’s healing. What I want to share is that disappointment is often God’s appointment. So my message is that God is not always in the business of making the best of our mistakes. He doesn’t just sweep in and pick up the pieces after our best-laid plans fall apart when we say or do something regrettable. He is though always working, even in our disappointments, and using those trials for a greater purpose. So we trust God is going to always work things out for our good. Friends, life most certainly hands us lemons. But we need more than sweet lemonade to replace the sourness of the situation. And here in our Babylon every disappointing day reminds us that this is not our home. We too are in captivity of sorts. When the days don’t go our way, we long for a better life, where there are no more tears, disappointments, sorrows, and suffering. A life where the God who faithfully promised to keep us to the end will wipe every tear of disappointment away forever.
Pray God bind up our emotional and physical wounds. Pray God have mercy on our foolishness. Pray we not make things worse by what we say and do. Pray we not be deceived but sow love in abundance in seek of mercy. Pray that though every day reminds us life will never turn out exactly as we hoped it will still turn out and if it is shared with Jesus what more can we really ask for. Pray believing in the words of Amazing Grace that “Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home.”
Blessings,
John Lawson
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