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PROGRAM W-1797 – Part I
More than any other group, Christians should be the healing agents of this world—binding wounds and healing hurts as we share what Jesus has done for us—instead of opening old wounds and re-injuring the walking wounded. This is often one of our greatest areas of failure in the body of Christ—the tendency to shoot those who are wounded already.
Think about how we heal physically from scrapes, cuts, and skin wounds. Two things are required: the absence of physical interference, and the presence of an applied antiseptic. You need to apply something that will kill the bacteria and keep the wound from becoming infected, and then leave it alone. When you leave it alone, a scab begins to form; underneath the scab, the skin is healing and becoming like new again. However, if you keep picking at the scab, it never has a chance to heal.
Now, transfer this analogy to spiritual wounds—wounds which are a result of a variety of circumstances and situations in people’s lives, and have caused great pain, leaving them with emotional and mental scabs. These walking wounded are people whose lives have already been permanently scarred—perhaps through life’s hard places like divorce, abortion, immorality, abuse, rejection, or some other tragedy. Many times their scabs are showing.
Regrettably, all too often the message that these walking wounded hear from our Christian community comes across as a condemnation of their actions. The accusing voices come through loud and clear with seemingly little or no awareness of the further damage which is being inflicted.
Let me try to tell you how it feels when you’re seeking to recover from a scab like this—when the wound is just beginning to heal, and someone starts to pick at it. Imagine a woman who had a baby before she was married, but she’s found God’s forgiveness and has begun to recover from the pain and shame after a few years. The scab is starting to form but, before she’s perfectly healed, someone who doesn’t know her situation says to her, “Did you know that Suzie had a baby three months after she was married? Can you believe it? And her family has been in our church for years!”
What does our friend hear? She hears this: People who have immorality in their past are not people you would want to associate with. These people have committed the unpardonable sin and they are not as good or acceptable to us (and parenthetically, to God) as the rest of us who haven’t messed up our lives like that. Of course this isn’t true, but that’s what she hears. Now the wound has been reopened and the healing process has been set back.
The person who spoke those words would likely insist that she didn’t mean any harm and would never have said it had she known about this person’s past. But once those words get out, the harm is done. Besides, the Bible teaches us that what comes out of our mouths shows what is in our hearts. The fact that she said it would indicate a judgmental spirit.
I’m struggling to find a way to express this so that even those who have never experienced such a wound can still relate to those who have. Please understand that I’m not advocating that Christians take a soft stand against wrong or sin. But I am pleading for all of us to put on compassion, as we are told in Colossians chapter 3; put ourselves in the other person’s shoes; to say often to ourselves, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
For instance, the abortion issue is a dramatic example of how we can hurt the walking wounded if we’re not very careful. We protest the killing of the unborn and well we should. But when we talk about the wrong of abortion, we need to remember that we may be talking to women who have had abortions, men who have encouraged abortions, doctors and nurses who have performed abortions, receptionists who have scheduled abortions, etc. There are more than just babies’ lives that need to be saved; there are the spiritual lives of all of those who have been involved with abortion.
If what these people hear from our united Christian voice is predominantly condemnation, then we may be successful at nothing more than dumping guilt on them for their part in the sin of abortion while failing to give them the good news—the good news that Jesus Christ can salvage us, any of us. There is nothing beyond his healing touch.
The fact is this: because of Jesus, we are in a position to say that even though there is bad news, there is also wonderfully good news of forgiveness and healing. We have a “bad news, good news” story to tell, and we should focus on the good part as much as possible.
It’s a human tendency to tell bad news much more than we do good news. In fact, a study shows we repeat bad news about four times as much as we do good news. But as Christians, we should not fall into that human tendency.
We have good news: Christ has come to redeem people who make messes out of their lives. Jesus has the antiseptic to heal all wounds, even the irreversible ones. When we have Jesus, we can recover from our pasts and we don’t have to spend the rest of our lives hanging our head in defeat. My dear friends, that is incredibly good news! Why aren’t we quick to tell it?
Similarly, when we talk about divorce, we need to be aware that there are many all around us who are divorced. You can hardly expect to be in any group of any size without having some divorced people in that group. We can all agree that God hates divorce and so do we. But again, we need to be sensitive to the fact that there are walking wounded in our presence, and they don’t need condemnation; they need the healing balm of Gilead.
While I’m at it, let me mention a few other walking wounded types that often find Christians picking at their wounds. Battered women who have stayed in those abusive situations and not extricated themselves immediately, or women who have been sexually abused as children or teens. We know there is a strong tendency for an abused woman to assume she is the guilty one and that she deserves the punishment she is receiving. It is often difficult for her to take herself out of the abusive environment.
Those of us who, thank God, have never had to endure that kind of abuse are sometimes quick to say things like “How could she stay in that marriage? She ought to just get out of there.” Or, “How could she allow that to happen to her?” Those are harmful words which will pick at the scab of someone trying to heal from the wounds of abusiveness.
Again, put yourself in the shoes of this battered woman who has finally begun to pull away from her abusive environment, has found the joy of newness in Christ, and is beginning to heal—the scab has formed. If she just happens to be in a group where someone, not knowing her situation, off-handedly makes that kind of comment, her healing process may be really damaged, perhaps permanently.
Another one which is all too common is our attitude toward wayward children. Stop and think right now, how many parents do you personally know who are having a real struggle with rebellious children? I would well imagine that all of us know someone in that predicament, and undoubtedly many of you are those walking wounded.
Suppose you’re a Christian parent whose child has gotten into drugs, is living in an immoral relationship, or has turned their back on Christianity. That is a very deep wound, and there are many walking wounded in this category. Imagine how you would feel if you heard a brother or sister in Christ talking about someone else’s wayward child in a judgmental way, such as, Well, I can tell you this much, they might say, if you bring up a child in the way it should go, they won’t go astray like this. That’s what the Bible says. Something’s wrong there somewhere.
Or perhaps you hear a sermon on how to raise your children, and the sermon seems to say, “Here’s the formula and, if you do it right, your kids will bring honor to you and the Lord, and you’ll have a happy home.”
How do you think you’d feel? It’s not hard to see that those words, that sermon, those attitudes expressed so freely by other Christians could very likely put you right back into that guilt syndrome which you thought you were beginning to climb out of. The scab which was protecting the healing process would be gone, picked off by other Christians, and the healing has to start all over again.
I have never spoken on the topic of mothering. I am a mother, and I suppose I could put together a message on how to be a good mother. But I never have and don’t believe I ever will. Why? Because my sweet daughter, Julie, never gave me any real trouble. Outside of the normal problems of little kids, she was about as easy to raise as you can find. She’s one of those compliant types who wants to please you and, as I’ve often told her, she makes me look a lot better as a mother than I am.
Quite frankly, I don’t think I’m qualified to talk to mothers or fathers who are struggling with their rebellious kids. I might be far too quick to give pat answers and advice and, instead of helping them, I might pick at their wounds.
I’m sure there are many other types of walking wounded as well as many variations of these categories, but I think you get the point. The walking wounded are all around us, both Christian and non-Christian, and we need to relate to them the way Jesus would relate to them.