Healing Spiritual Wounds

I have been amazed in life how such a little wind can sometimes knock some people over so hard, and I have come to realize it is because they have a wounded spirit and don’t have the ability to cope with the smallest of life’s problems.

Pr 15:13 ¶ A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken.

The soul and spirit are different, but they impact each other, when the soul is down the spirit can be broken. The spirit can be said at times to be in a broken, non-working condition. What exactly does that mean? Prayer will be difficult, faith and reliance on God will diminish, your spiritual immune system will be compromised and you will be subject to spiritual infections, of doubt, unbelief, overbearing temptations, a whole host of spiritual maladies will find it easier to take root in you.

Pr 17:22 ¶ A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

The spirit can impact the physical body.

Lets look at another scripture that shows the difference between soul and spirit:

Ps 43:5 Ps 43:5 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance, and my God.

In this passage of scripture, David is speaking to himself. Part of him is telling his soul not to stay sad, or to be discouraged, but to trust God that things will get better. To me this is one of the clearest scriptures in the bible that differentiates between soul and spirit even as Heb. 4:12 said the word would. The spiritual part of David was encouraging the soulish part of David. This is the very reason we are to speak to ourselves is psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

David encouraged himself in the Lord. If your spirit is well you will encourage yourself when things are glum, if your spirit is wounded you will discourage yourself when things are glum!

So then not only are things not going your way, but you find yourself throwing gasoline on the fire. By speaking to yourself in negative, self hurtful ways. Sometimes people say things to themselves that they would have to repent of if they said them to someone else. "You never do anything right." "You always fail." "I hate myself." "Nothing good ever goes your way." We have enough sense to know that we shouldn’t talk to someone else that way, but we don’t have enough sense to not talk to ourselves that way.

It would be like a football team, where the offensive line instead of protecting the quarterback, turns on him and tackles him!

Let’s move on, time is short.

Spiritual wounds hurt

I once met a woman who was going through a divorce that she did not want. She told me that sometimes she would call her husband (he was not living in the home), just to hear his voice and then hang up. There is a depth of pain that woman was walking through that I cannot imagine. That divorce hurt her, and she had an open bleeding spirit. Her whole life was focused on that open bleeding wound. She was in deep deep pain.

In Luke 4:18ff Jesus said that He was anointed to "Set at liberty them that are bruised." (KJV) A bruise is an outer sign inner bleeding. Some wounds we need a spiritual deliverance from, that only Jesus can provide.