Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30

God is changing us to be like Christ.

God is the change agent who is invested in a caring, loving, interactive Father-to-child relationship with His children. God is gentle with His children. He is a kind papa, humble, wise, trustworthy, strong, caring, loving and helpful. God-time is essential for spiritual strength.

A true spiritual cleansing with God’s intervening warmth of love and acceptance is renewing us from the inside out and is infusing spiritual components into our lives. We find ourselves participating in God’s character and likeness while we are morphing into becoming more representative of Christ’s character-likeness .

A transformational side allows complex healing and cleansing of our fully surrendered life as we are making gains in our spiritual life. A person who doesn’t hold back will experience new waves of freedom as their life becomes increasingly pliable, mold-able, and fluid. The resistance is gone. The inward places are becoming healthy. Their focus is changing as they bend toward loving God with all their heart, mind, and soul. The barriers have been removed and the interior self is being revitalized.

In the doing of this, God loves, teaches, corrects and guides His children. People who find God, who have really found Him in this way, are different than others in the Christian family. They have a quality about them, a softness indicative of quiet strength. Free access to the Eternal nature of renewal in interactive relationship with God shows outwardly. The person becomes gentle and humble in heart because God is gentle and humble in heart. The Christ-life is becoming more evident in their lives. They also are less self-centered as they cast off the desire to serve self.

What is going on in the person is that a presence, a Divine Presence, is being allowed fuller access in their life. This in an amazing process. A new beauty comes from within that lights the eyes with life and peace in an inner radiance that spills forth in splashes of joy and inner delight. It is especially noticed because it never draws attention to itself and is embarrassed when others mention it. God’s holy life is demonstrative in nature. In God’s gentle way, He goes about the business of cleansing our pain and mending our hearts and healing our hurts.

This is God’s loving intervention for us as He ministers to our areas of pain and inner isolation. God touches us where we have been wounded by thoughtless words and unkind actions. He also brings to the forefront those times when we have acted in wrong-minded self-interest through our own self-serving, unkind, words and actions. 

A therapist may guide us down the right path toward healing and wholeness. Friends can love us, family will support us, pastors can counsel us, and many will pray for us. But only God can meet us in the inner recesses of our hearts. He is the only one who can.

Only God can fully do this. It does take a willingness on our part to be brave and honest enough to let Him. This is a process that may be painful especially when experiences have piled up into formidable fortresses, walling emotions inside that may seem to be dormant but most likely ferment in harmful destructive ways.

There is something freeing in being able to say these words, “I can’t do it anymore, God. I can’t deal with my stuff any longer. I give up. You take it. I need your help. I give it to You and ask You to help me. Will You take over? I want You, dear God. You are all I want.” That is getting real with God and is what He waits for us to do.

That’s how we let go and give God the reins. When my life became too painful to carry the burden any longer, I gave up and asked God to do whatever He wanted to do with my life. What came next was extremely painful for me, but worth it in every way.

I gave my old hurts, sad events, and fears to God whenever I remembered them and then I asked God to show me what else was inside of me that was causing collateral damage in me. This began a process of God showing me my heart. He revealed to me what I wanted to forget. I saw how my wounds and self-imposed limitations were enclosed behind an emotional wall that was beyond my ability to expose or remediate.

Sadness, repentance, and sorrow often mingled together and had increased to the point of overwhelming my spirit. Their presence in me was the problem I never could identify, the pain I could never understand, the damaged emotions that I thought “good Christians” should never have. One by one God gently removed their hold on me and released their sorrow from my heart.

God met me there as I revisited the ache in my heart. The pain was gut-wrenching real. God held me close in His tight embrace as He wiped my endless tears from swollen eyelids. His love was warm and comforting, kind and forgiving. His Father-love enveloped me. God touched my wounds, lifted my sorrows, healed my hurts—and set me free. And, I came to understand, Christ shared in my suffering during His anguish on the cross.

My sadness gave way to relief then peace. The freedom was as if a burden had lifted and the monkey was off my back. The sorrow disappeared out of my heart until only a scar remained. I have never been the same. The pain has not returned. There are still times of pain but the systemic anguish caused by silent suffering in the inner self is no longer present. The deep sense of sorrow is gone. Joy has entered.

Peace reigns supreme.

Take some time to work through this one. If you don’t believe you have any hidden hurts, I suggest you ask God to reveal them to you. Expect to be surprised. We tend to hide these things under emotional lock and key. Be free. Walk free. Find freedom in Jesus’ love. I will pray for your healing and peace. God bless you.

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©N. L. Brumbaugh

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