Hurts

People are going to say and do things to us that hurt us and that cut us deeply. Sadly this is part of being human. We step on one another's toes, and most of the time we don't even realize we are doing it. But we don't have to let those things rock us to the core. We don’t have to let these things over take our thoughts, rob us from our peace and steal our precious joy. What we must do in these moments is to take our eyes off our own hurts and put our eyes on the one who created us, the one who knows our name, the one who loves us more then we can put into words. Yes, there will be moments that we question God's love for us, especially in the moments of deep hurt, but in our moments of questioning we must remember to take a good look at His hands, His feet, and His side and that will be proof enough of His love for us. What is ironic, is that most of these hurts we carry around truly mean nothing in the realm of eternity. The hurtful things people say to us and do to us often times has very little impact on eternity. It is not God’s design for us to carry around the hurts of this life. He desires that we be free from those things, that we can walk in liberty from our hurts. (To read more about this topic visit my blog post entitled "Casting Our Cares".) 

How can our hurts be a positive thing for us?

God can use our hurts to do some amazing things in our lives. Believe me, if it had not been for some heartbreaking things in my life, I am quite sure that I would not have learned some of my most beautiful spiritual lessons, lessons that I know could not have learned without the hurt attached to them. It was in the times of hurt that I ran to the arms of my beloved creator, and it was in His arms that these lessons were learned. If I had not had the hurt driving me into His arms, I probably would not have been there otherwise. What a sad thing to think that it sometimes takes hurt to get us to sit in the lap of our father. But I for one am thankful for these precious moments. They are moments that I cherish and moments that will not be quickly forgotten.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” James 1:2-4

If we look at the purpose of us experiencing hurts through the funnel of these few verses found in James we will see that hurts in this life are almost necessary in order to bring about perseverance and maturity in our faith. Perseverance and maturity are not handed over to us automatically with our salvation. These things only come by way of some trials in our life. If we look at those trials as opportunities to grow, it is then that we can experience the pure joy that James is sharing about. On the flip side of that if we fight the hurts and trials that come into our life and do not allow the Lord to develop His character in us in these challenging times, then growth and maturity will not be the outcome for us, and it is quite possible that we will see even more hurts and trials come because of our lack of willingness to surrender to the process of growth. So, as hard as it is to be thankful for the moments when we are hurt by someone, we just need to remind ourselves of God’s greater purpose in it all. Unlike the Lord, we see in part. This inhibits our ability to see God’s purposes for the times of hurt entering into our lives.

Now, I am not saying that we should allow other’s to snow plow us over and that we should not stand up and say something when it is appropriate to speak. However, I am saying that it is important to recognize that God has the ability to teach us some very precious things in these hurtful moments, but we must simply stop, and take the time to seek Him before we respond to the one who has hurt us. God can give us great wisdom in these moments and if we just spout out whatever comes to our minds first we can quite possibly miss a beautiful thing that God has planned for the situation we find ourselves in. Let’s allow God to do the leading in our moments of hurt and we will be amazed at the outcome of the situation!

Lord, thank you that you can see us in our moments of hurt and that you have beautiful plans in the midst of it all. Help us to seek your face in the very moments that we just want to explode on the person who has hurt us. Help us to listen for your voice and respond not as we want, but as you want us to respond. Help us to exhibit self control in these moments. Help us to be willing to look for the lesson in the midst of our hurt. Lord, we know that you work all things together for our good, and we also know that our moments of hurt are no exception.