PURE HEARTS CAN STILL BE WOUNDED -- Devotional for January 31, from "Good Seeds"

Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; (I Corinthians 7:15); Let go (cease striving) and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).

As much as it hurts to be defrauded by someone, how much worse the feeling (at least eventually) and the guilt (right now) that stains the life of the one who has wounded another. The most miserable person in the world is the rebel, the one falling away – or running away – from a spouse, or a friend, or a Savior! Understanding this will help remove the victim mentality from the one being deserted, and help to transform his anger and hurt into great sorrow and compassion for the one who has inflicted the pain. Jesus felt keenly the sting of rejection by the very people He’d come to save. One day His disciples found Him weeping at the city gates. Through His sobs they heard Him say, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I longed to draw you to My breast, as a mother hen her chicks, but you would not come"(Matthew 23:37). O that we could follow Christ's example, drawing on His perspective to see life – and His power to live life – as He did. But to receive these things we must be willing to suffer as He did, without paying back in kind. Does your heart ache with unrelenting pain? So did His. He turned the other cheek. So must we. He never pressured anyone to come to him. Neither should we. When a wife turns her back on her husband, he must let go – not of his commitment to her, but of any hate or hurt he may feel towards her. He must do this for his own sake as well as hers. Corrie ten Boom’s sister Becky, who was dying from the torture they both were enduring in a Nazi death camp, pleaded, “No hate, Corrie, no hate!” A wise and loving exhortation, as she saw how resentment was drawing her sister into Satan’s clutches. Although purity of heart will not automatically protect us from persecution and suffering, it will transform that suffering into ministrations of grace toward our enemies. Maybe this is why Jesus told us to “Bless those who curse you; bless and curse not.” We must understand what power we do and do not have in the lives of others: A wife has no authority over her husband to make him keep his vows – to the Lord, or to her. But she – and we all – have the very power of God at our disposal when we let go – of the hurt, of the hate, of the circumstances – and leave room, and time, for God to come in and do His work. Your pure heart can be wounded, to be sure, but “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” – and they shall see God at work on their behalf, for His glory!