Has anyone here ever been hurt by someone you love? or respect? Has any believer here ever been disillusioned about the church because you were let down by a leader in the church? Maybe there is a pastor here who is not in a pulpit because he has been hurt. I know for a fact that whenever I am addressing missionaries or pastors and especially pastor's wives and children, these kinds of wounds are present.
I call this "friendly fire." It is the flack that we take from our own side. It is the misguided bomb intended for the enemy that lands right smack dab in the middle of our hearts. The pain was known by David.
Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me (Psalm 41:9).
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The pain was known by our Lord.
. . . "He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me" (John 13:18).
Today the question is not, How do we stop it? The question is, What do we do with it? The question may also be put, Will I remain a victim, or will I move to being a victor with Christ?
When the Clock Stops
I once sold insurance door-to-door in poor areas of Louisiana. One of my clients was a poor family who lived in an old house on the other side of the tracks. Every month I would go to collect the insurance money, and we would sit in their living room and talk. One day I noticed that the clock was wrong. It said nine o'clock when, in fact, it was noon. I said nothing. But I saw the same thing the next month and then the next month. Finally, I said something to the husband and wife. Tears came to their eyes. "That was the moment our boy died ten years ago," they told me. The clock had stopped in their lives.
The pain of friendly fire can stop the clock. This happens to Christians who get hurt by other Christians and who fail to identify their pain with Christ. The clock stops. They go through life, month after month, year after year, and often church after church, but the clock stopped in their lives way back when they were hurt. Today it is popular to be a victim. But being a victim is not a good way to live because life cannot go forward when the clock has stopped at the point of our last betrayal.
Yet I wonder, how many here today are living their lives with the clock stopped?
There is another answer. There is a way to healing. But I warn you, it will involve another kind of pain — the pain of Christ's cross. But Christ's cross will bring resurrection, and the new life He brings will also make the clock start ticking again.
This is what we see in Joseph's being able to forgive his brothers after they literally ditched him. Joseph identified his pain with God. In God the pain was intended to bring blessing. Being hurt by his brothers made sense. The pain of false accusation made sense. The trial of unjust imprisonment was good. The years of separation from his father were good for him. He was saying with David, "Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil" (Psalm 90:15).
