Wounds Can Change Your Heart

Devotional - Elizabeth Elliot

Living in a world broken by sin, we suffer wounds
of many kinds. Perhaps the most painful are not
the physical ones but those of the heart. No one
has power to hurt us more deeply than somebody we
love, somebody we counted on to understand and
support us. But there are two ways to receive
wounds. One leads to larger life. The other leads
straight to death, that is to destruction--of
those we influence as well as of ourselves.

By grace we can receive the wounds of our friends
as our Master received them--in the strength and
for the glory of our heavenly Father. Being
sinners ourselves, however, we need to be brought
low at the cross. Nothing will do this better
than some piercing heart-wound, provided we seek
Christ because of it and pray Him to purify us.

There is another way--the world's way. It is
anger, resentment, retaliation, retreat into
pride and self-justification. These are quite
natural, and quite lethal. The choice is ours.

"The wound which is borne in God's way brings a
change of heart too salutary to regret, but the
hurt which is borne in the world's way brings
death" (2 Cor 7:10 NEB).