The Heart and Healing

"The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?" (Prov. 18:14). I can't really think of a truer saying than this one from the book of Proverbs. A person can endure and bear a lot of things, but if their heart is broken they have nothing left to hold up the weight. In fact someone can be injured in their spirit over something that wouldn't be a very big problem for someone else, but nonetheless it will sap the motivation to live right out of them anyway. That's really what it comes down to - motivation. A lot of folks deal with a lot of adversity, but as long as their motivation is intact they manage to somehow get through it all. It is when the spirit is broken and a person's motivation is quenched that the real damage is done. You simply cannot go forward in a productive way when your motivation for living has a strangle hold on it. There are so many people who are living their life with inner pain that has not been cured. The only reason someone in this state continues at all is simply that they are slightly less motivated to die than they are to live. Tragically that balance often time switches. This is why the healing power of God's love is so incredibly glorious, because it is the only cure in existence for a broken spirit. Many people go forward, covering the pain over with a lot of things, and tucking it away. But if God's healing love and power doesn't wash that pain away, it is still there, and it is still felt. I can't imagine where I would be, or even IF I would be, if I were still carrying the pain that I have incurred in my lifetime. I'm just thankful that somehow I've been able to let God heal me of all the pain that I've dealt with over the course of my life. In the first sermon on record that Jesus preached, he started with Isaiah 61, which of course was about him: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Lk. 4:18,19).

I believe that an anointing to heal the broken spirits of men has to be about the most valuable tool available in the Gospel of Christ. After all, as our text verse states, a man can deal with just about anything else that comes against him if he has to, as long as his spirit is able to hold up. Isaiah spoke of Jesus in another place, graphically describing his anointing to heal the broken of heart: "A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench" (Isa. 42:3). When someone's spirit has been badly injured by the harsh dealings of this life, it doesn't take much at all to just finish them off. Only the gentle love and wisdom of God can bring someone up from the pit of despair and set them upright on their feet again without injuring them even worse. With all that we seek to have power with God in, we should seek that anointing and wisdom with great priority. There are more souls than can be counted who are barely clinging to life, waiting for that miracle to come their way. Most of them don't even know it exists. They manage to somehow lead a 'normal' life, but with great misery because of the heavy load of pain that they are carrying. Sadly many have already utterly collapsed and fallen off the map before someone could come along with the necessary spiritual assets at their disposal to succor them. When Jesus anointed seventy men beside his twelve apostles, for the ministry of his Gospel, he told them like it is: "Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest" (Lk. 10:2). At no time in history has that saying applied more than it does today. The time has come to reap the final harvest of the Lord, and it is a very great one. If your heart is toward those who are bearing this pain, then strap on your boots my friend, and roll your sleeves up; and let's get this work done, for God is with all who are willing to go forward to the needy souls of this last and greatest harvest. If that is not your heart then pray through until it is. Amen.