The spirit of the Lord God is upon Me because the Lord has anointed Me; He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display His glory. Isaiah 61:3
“If you wanted to learn how to heal the blind and you thought that following Christ around and watching how He did it would make things clear, you’d wind up pretty frustrated. He never does it the same way twice. He spits on one guy; for another, He spits on the ground and makes mud and puts that on his eyes. To a third He simply speaks, a fourth He touches, and a fifth He kicks out a demon.
There are no formulas with God. The way in which God heals our wound is a deeply personal process. He is a person and He insists on working personally. For some, it comes in a moment of divine touch. For others, it takes place over time and through the help of another, maybe several others. As Agnes Sanford says, “There are in many of us wounds so deep that only the mediation of someone else to whom we may ’bare our grief’ can heal us.”
So much healing took place in my life simply through my friendship with Brent. …We were friends. We spent hours together flyfishing, backpacking, hanging out in pubs. Just spending time with a man I truly respected, a real man who loved and respected me—nothing heals quite like that…
Healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ. The healing of our wound flows out of our union with him. But there are some common themes that I share with you as you seek the restoration of your heart. The first step seems so simple it’s almost hard to believe we overlook it, never ask for it, and when we do, we sometimes struggle for days just to get the words out. It begins with surrender.
As Lewis says, “Until you have given yourself to Him you will not have a real self.” We return the branch to its trunk; we yield our lives to the One who is our Life. And then we invite Jesus into the wound; we ask Him to come and meet us there, to enter into the broken and unhealed places of our heart. When the Bible tells us that Christ came to “redeem mankind” it offers a whole lot more than forgiveness.
To simply forgive a broken man is like telling someone running a marathon, “It’s okay that you’ve broken your leg. I won’t hold that against you. Now finish the race.” That is cruel, to leave him disabled that way. No, there is much more to our redemption. The core of Christ’s mission is foretold in Isaiah 61.”
Agnes Sanford and C. S. Lewis as cited by John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 76-77.
I like that Eldredge speaks of the impact of a flyfishing friend. I have one of those. His name is John Stanley. John has been one of the greatest influences in my life in recent years. He’s the one who taught me the Surrender Novena though always gives credit to Dolindo Ruotolo where he got it. It goes like this:
“Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!’ Say that 10 times a day. Especially when challenges arise.
If you come to God feeling wounded or broken in any area of life, notice the advice from Sanford today. “There are in many of us wounds so deep that only the mediation of someone else to whom we may ’bare our grief’ can heal us.” The suffering servant that Isaiah foretold is Jesus.
As I read Eldredge sitting in Colombia, a place filled with brokenness, I feel I need to proclaim this.
And read what my favorite professor, C. S. Lewis says about Jesus. “Until you have given yourself to Him you will not have a real self.” So the generosity to is a bit of a paradox. If we are willing to give ourself to Jesus, it will cost us everything, but we will gain our real self.
The Savior that Isaiah foretold delivers us from our old or false self and gives us a new or real one.
The only pathway to grasp this, daily, is surrender. Discover the freedom of surrender afresh today. Pray the Surrender Novena over every wound, every worry, every temptation, and every trouble. Bringing Jesus into every minute of your life does not bring you down. It lifts you up. Give yourself to Him today afresh.
Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!