When You Get Hurt

Hurts will come. We live in a broken world, among broken people.
And hurt people hurt others. It's just the way fallen humans operate.

So, how are we supposed to handle the hurts that come?
In the natural, we try to just be tough. But this isn't healthy. It's like trying to bandage up a wound and put a cast on it, to protect it, without cleaning out the wound. And that's dangerous!  Infection most certainly will set in, and can spread into the bloodstream.

The same is true spiritually. Hurts must be dealt with correctly, by the Great Physician, or they will become sources of bitterness and undercover anger... which can erupt elsewhere in our lives, as physical illness, or even mental illness.

Hebrews 12: 12-15

12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

When we get hurt, we tend to try to cope in two ways:

1.Protect ourselves. Try to hide it. Smooth it over, bandage it up. Don’t let others get to your injury. 

2.Lash out to hurt the one who hurt us. Hurt them back. Get even. Up the ante.

What happens in the heart of one who is hurt, who tries to smooth it over, trying to say “I don’t hold it against them” but somehow that thing stays there? It festers.

Verse 15 says it becomes a ROOT. A root of bitterness. The longer that thing stays there, the bigger and thicker it grows.
We might think, Oh, I don’t have bitterness! I remember what happened to me, and I was done WRONG, but I’ve forgiven them.

How can we know if we have truly forgiven? 

If we find ourselves talking about the hurt… we are still keeping a record of that wrong.

 
When we have truly forgiven, we won’t keep bringing it up.

How does a root of bitterness “defile many”?

In the church, what happens, when hurts grow into roots?

Hurt people tend to hurt others. And the root finds a place to grow in another heart. It can spread thru a church, like gangrene, infecting the next generation.
It can be what takes many souls to hell.
And it happens within the church, among those who truly are trying to serve God.

And if we allow bitterness to grow in our hearts, it can cause us to fall into deep sin. Sin we never intended to do. But bitterness festers and grows into something out of control. And it can cause us to completely self-destruct, eventually. 

Do you remember the story of Absolom, in 2 Samuel? 

Absolom's sister Tamar was raped by Amnon, his half-brother, and King David did nothing.

Absolom purposed in his heart to take care of this injustice... he killed Amnon, and fled.

  King David wanted nothing to do with Absolom. Eventually, David allowed Absolom to return home, but still refused to see him. And Absolom became very bitter. Absolom's bitterness festered and festered... until he began to plot a coup to take David's throne... and kill his own father. 

We know how the story ends. Absolom is leading his army to find and kill David, and God arranges for him to die in the branches of an oak. 

His bitterness led him to seek revenge... and it killed him.

There's another man in this story who also was destroyed by bitterness.

Have you ever heard of Ahithophel? 

Ahithophel was a very wise counsellor. He knew right from wrong, and was highly honored among David's kingdom.  He was one of David's trusted advisors. 

2 Samuel 16:23 
"And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God..."

But when Absolom tried to rise up and take the kingdom, Ahithophel went with Absolom, not David! Why?

Hidden in the Scriptures is the reason. Follow closely:

2 Samuel 23 lists the 30 chief military officers in David's army.
Look at verse 34:

34 " ... Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite.."

So, the first piece of this puzzle is that Ahithophel had a son: Eliam.
Keep that in mind.
Now look at 2 Samuel 11: 3

3: "And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, 'is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"

When David inquired after Bathsheba, the response he got was basically, "David, not THIS woman!  You can have any woman you want, except not this one! She's from a very important family!"  

But David's flesh was in control, and he was determined to have what he wanted.
Basically, he raped Bathsheba.

Ahithophel's granddaughter.

'Bathsheba' means, "daughter of the covenant." She was from a very upright family. A godly family. 

She was the apple of Ahithophel's eye.
How he must have loved his little granddaughter! From cuddling her in his arms, until she began to toddle, and then blossoming into a beautiful young woman, she was carefully sheltered and protected. She was their "daughter of the covenant."

Her husband would have been carefully chosen. He must have really been a godly person, to have been accepted even though he was not Israeli by birth! His character, personality and wisdom must have been outstanding. 

But Ahithophel's world was shattered one day.  Uriah, his beloved son-in-law, had been murdered in battle. And it was easily traceable to David. 

From that point, everything fell in place.  David had raped his granddaughter!

Ahithophel had reason to be furious with David!
He waited for years for God to judge him... but God seemingly wasn't going to do it!

And all that time, Ahithophel is meditating on what justice would look like...

The rest of the story:

Ahithophel gave very bad advice to Absolom.
He advised him to take David's concubines up to the roof, and rape them in the sight of all Israel.  In Ahithophel's mind, this is exactly what David deserved!

But that wasn't enough.
Ahithophel had for many years meditated on what God ought to do to David!

Obviously, to his fevered mind, God must have chosen to put HIM, the greatly wronged one, in the position to carry out divine justice!

So in 2 Samuel 17, Ahithophel offers to do for Absolom what he knew God's Law demanded: execute the murderer! He offers to hunt David down and kill him personally.  Oh, what sweet revenge!
You can hear the hunger in his offer - how he longs to plunge that sword into David!

But at the last minute, Ahithophel's hopes were dashed.
Absolom opts to lead his army himself, to go kill David.

What does Ahithophel do?

He goes out and hangs himself. 

And this is what happens to a bitter person. They self-destruct.

Why?
Because when you refuse to forgive, you open a door for the enemy to enter your soul.  

Ephesians 4:26  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 

27  Neither give place to the devil.

What to do with hurts.

What do you do with an invasive perennial weed?  

You've got to get the root out. Or it will come back.  This is WORK. 

Sometimes, forgiving is hard work. And it can take time to work down through all the layers of hurt. How long does this process take? Sometimes, years. 

Sometimes, you think you've forgiven.. and suddenly, you hear yourself talking bitterly again about that hurt... and you feel it again. 

A bit of the root is still there. As long as you leave some in there, it will grow back.

Take your hurt to the cross.

Fix your eyes on Jesus. See your pain on Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.
He took upon himself not only our iniquity and sin, but also our hurts.

When he was being ridiculed, he was taking your ridicule.
The spitting in the face-- that was the spit others put in your face.

The mockery—that was your mockery He was taking.

Just as Jesus provided forgiveness,

Even so, He provided physical healing.
And also soul-healing.

ALL of this is in that Greek word SOZO. That's the word translated 'salvation.'

But you have to give Jesus complete access into the depths of your soul.

Those rooms you don’t even go in, in your heart, you have to let Him in.

It can be frightening, to allow the bandages off, to allow Him to cut off the dead stuff. To allow Him to shine His light into those dark corners… because bugs live there.

Infection comes from bacteria.

Spiritually, Satan has his bacteria, too. Lies he gets us to believe.

Sometimes, we allow these bacteria from Satan to take up residence:

1. God hasn’t judged correctly. That person ought to suffer more for what they’ve done!
(So we set ourself up as judge, in God’s place, in our hearts toward that person. In doing so, we exalt our own throen, like Lucifer! -actually bitter at God! We’d deny it, but that’s really the reason we get bitter at others!)

2. This is too big. It can never heal.

3. My future will never be as good as it could have been, because of this person’s sin against me.

4. I was alone. God didn’t help me.

Try this:

Get alone. Get very still. Think of that hurt you try not to think about anymore.
That loss. That neglect. That hurtful comment.

Now ask Jesus where He was, at that time.

Let Him show you Himself.

He is Truth.

When Jesus shows you His Truth about the situation, everything will change.

You shall know the Truth, and it will make you free!

On a practical level...

1. Let God be God. Get down off the throne of judgment. Admit we have sinned ourselves, and need large forgiveness! My sin against God is much bigger than that person’s sin against me.

2. Pray Jesus’ prayer: Father forgive them, they know not what they do. From the heart. Not superficially.

Ask God to forgive them through you. 

Ask Him to let you feel His heart toward that person.

3. Allow yourself to love them, as if they were your own son.

Because that’s how God forgives us. That’s why He gave his son—to forgive those who hurt Him.

When you can truly pray from your heart, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they did!" - Then you are on the path to healing.  And it helps to pray that prayer in faith, before you ever feel a thing in that direction. Because if you choose to pray it, then your spirit means it. Once you start praying it, you will find your own feelings begin to change.

And before you know it, you will find yourself praying for God to bless them.

When can you know you are truly healed?

When it doesn't hurt anymore.
When you can look at that person with no ill-feelings.
When you don't mention anymore the bad thing that happened to you.

When you think back and say, "yes, that was hard, but God redeemed the situation, and taught me a lot through it... and I'm a better person for having gone through it."

They may have meant it for evil,
 
but God meant it for good.