Everybody gets hurt. It may be physical, emotional, or spiritual, but everybody goes through pain. When we hurt, we need to be very careful to guard our hearts, our heads, and our mouths. It is hard enough to keep these in check when all is well. Pain can cause us to reduce our filters and let things in and out of our lives that dishonor God.
So here are three things we should never do when we are hurt.
1. Make a major life decision.
2. Tell people what we really think of them.
3. Let people outside of our accountability circle know the depth of our hurt.
And here is why…
1. Major life decisions need to be made with a clear mind and a heart focused heavenward. When we are hurt, we usually do not have our thoughts together and our heart is usually focused inward. The best things we can do are pray and wait for God to bring resolution and healing.
2. Our words matter. What we say not only impacts other people, but it determines their view of us. When we say things, we force people to determine the level of influence they will allow us to have in their lives. When we are in pain, we usually say things we regret. These regretful words can hurt other people and minimize our ability to be of service to God in their lives. The best things we can do are to keep quiet and simply pray.
3. We all need a circle of people that we know and trust with our lives. These people see our blind spots and keep us accountable. These people can handle our pain and the sin that surfaces in these seasons of struggle. It may feel good in the moment to tell the world how bad we are hurting, but the response of the world to our communication will probably not be favorable. The fact is most people do not have the time or strength to care. Some people are hurting and are sadly glad to see our pain. Those that listen and are concerned usually want to fix us, which sometimes is not God’s will. This only leads to more pain. The best things we can do are trust our friends and pray.
Are you hurting? Be careful how you talk about it.
2 comments:
That is such good advice. It is so important yet so hard to put a guard on our lips - specially when we are hurting. But we must. Jesus did. Isn't it in Isaiah where he says,"He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth." Negative talk will only give the enemy greater access into our lives.
Burying our hurt is not the answer either, but like you said, prayer is. In prayer we must speak our hurts to the Father, in prayer we must allow Him to hold us in His loving arms, and in prayer we must ask for the strength to forgive.
Very good, practical advice.
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