Healing comes to those who are humble, real, and thirsty. Most men have become so calloused to their boyhood stories that they don’t realize how their false self
uses humor to cushion the pain,
wields sarcasm to deflect hurt,
goes passive under criticism,
gets loud in order to be heard,
or tries to be funny when it’s time to be serious.
It is how we learned to play the game, cope with the uncomfortable, and vow again that life is up to us.
After the fall, Adam and Eve hid from God behind fig leaves. We have fig leaves of our own: defensiveness, blame-shifting, minimization, resentment, self- justification . . . many are the ways we try to conceal our true condition, and the pain associated with it, from God, those around us, and ourselves. But of course God sees, and sooner or later, others do too. The one person we’re fooling is ourselves.
Our one hope of transformation is to go to God as vulnerably as we know how. It is then that God can lovingly call out the wound, speak to us about it, show us why it happened, and reassure us that he was, and is, in it with us. The result may feel like the removal of a thorn or cool on the burn. Or it may feel like the removal of a thousand pounds off our chest or the invasion of a peace that transcends understanding.
Healing, above all else, frees.
The utter relief of not having to live one more moment under the power, influence, and curse of a lie, with its emotional baggage and triggers, makes the courageous steps toward healing and freedom well worth taking. What have you to lose?
