God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting ways— the path that brings me back to you.
Psalm 139:23-24 (TPT)
Much of whom a man becomes and what he settles for has been learned over time and through the shaping experiences and conclusions he makes during his life. Can you imagine the sum of all our conclusions, all the beliefs we hold in our hearts, being accurate? Some of them, yes. But all? No way.
We all harbor inaccuracies, lies about ourselves, others, or God, in which we have learned to hold and live. These lies arise from wounds, they become ways in themselves, and our wounded ways in turn affect others.
It is therefore of paramount importance that we experience healing and treatment so something glorious and good can replace the pain, guilt, and shame. Just as wounded hearts wound other hearts, so a whole heart can help other hearts become whole as well. The damage is reversed and the wound is redeemed. What was intended for bad, God makes good, so now what is passed down comes from the good stored up in the heart. It is part of what Jesus was talking about in Luke 6:45 (NIV),
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart.
We need to receive from God the good things we didn’t get and give to him the bad things we did get. We need to experience the reality of being Beloved Sons; then we’ll be able to take our rightful place in the story God is telling and the part he has created for each man to play.
An excerpt from The Heart of a Warrior.
