Happy Monday!!! I hope everyone had a GREAT weekend serving Jesus!
This week’s devotion is “The Snake and The Saw” written by Roxanne Waterhouse. Please take the time to read as she shares her heart with us.
It’s a brand new week which opens new opportunities to serve Jesus. I hope you all have an extraordinary week!!
The Snake and The Saw – Roxanne Waterhouse
Have you ever been so deeply hurt, that you wonder how you will truly heal from the experience? Have you received an emotional wound that has affected your spirit, and you don’t know how to truly move forward?
If your answer was “yes” to those questions, may I encourage you to continue reading for just a few moments.
Ladies, we’ve all been there: someone has betrayed your trust or spoken words that cut to the heart. Perhaps it was a friend or family member. It may be a church member with whom you serve. Something went wrong somewhere. It could have begun with a misunderstanding or lack of communication. It could have been rooted in jealousy or contempt.
Whatever the root and whatever the result, I surmise that we’ve all been hurt deeply at some point in time.
What we do with our hurt will determine our spirit going forward. In the picture above, you notice how the snake has been cut by the hand saw. That was tragic in and of itself. There was an initial wound given to the snake.
But do you notice what the snake has done in response to the hurt? It wrapped itself around the object of pain and began to squeeze and attack it. Instead of hurting the hand saw, the snake is continuing to wound itself. The hand saw is not affected.
But the snake is another story.
The more it squeezes, the more the snake believes the hand saw is continuing to harm it. This is a vicious cycle that will not end until one of two things happen: 1) Either the snake chooses to release its grip on the object that brought harm, or 2) the snake will bleed itself out and die trying to revenge that hand saw.
Ladies, sometimes we are so hurt that we refuse to heal. Sometimes, we hold tight the hurt, and do not realize that we are continuing the cycle of harm in our own heart.
We cannot “undo” the pain caused to us by others. But what we do in those moments afterward is crucial.
We can choose to hold tightly to the offense, squeezing and continuing to suffer by our own free will in an attempt to avenge ourselves.
But this is not the way taught to us in God’s Word. We know that we have a Saviour Who can empathize with our pain and suffering. Not only has He experienced it Himself, but His heart is more tender toward us than we can realize.
We often hear it said that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Great Physician, and we usually ask Him for physical healing when needed. But look at what He does as our Physician:
Psalm 147:3 “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”
Just like we would allow a general doctor to look at a wound for care and healing, we must release our grip on our emotional wounds and show them to the Great Physician.
“Here, Lord, is my broken heart. Here is my wound. You see it. It’s hurting me so bad. I don’t know how to fix the pain. I’m giving it to You for healing. Please bind up this wound and heal my broken heart.”
When you release your grip on the offense, you can then hand it to the Saviour for His gentle and complete healing. Of course, you can decide to squeeze onto the offense and angrily refuse to relinquish your “right” to be bitter, but who will ultimately be the one hurt most of all?
In my own life, I’ve been emotionally hurt in ways that some would never recover from. I’m sure many can say the same. People can be cruel and hateful and ungodly. Even other born-again believers can wound us so deeply that it’s hard to continue on. When those moments come, let’s not use our strength to clench onto the hurt and make it deeper, refusing to heal.
Instead, remember that the Great Physician is close by. He is able and ready to comfort and heal. And He’ll mend you so perfectly and sweetly that your testimony will shine! Don’t be likelike the snake and keep squeezing the saw!
https://www.sappsolutely.com/devotions/the-snake-and-the-saw-roxanne-waterhousefbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1sON28R314xYAOzmmEjs18pQeoPKydd4lIlpooBNQy4uBF_GkXZicU_aem_AUI1_us2MGffnuJmahBSQuE_GpyxVPHPxpw4IFK0L_8GD175qgt7WzYZIBwyCgLNJm_ha484zrZCs6a9t8x3xkT
