While ignoring her own sin of arrogance, I wonder if Hagar’s life then flashed before her mind’s eye as she indulged in a full-scale pity party. Did all the old wounds pop up like boils on her heart? How Pharaoh had given her as chattel to Abraham and Sarah; how frightened and alone she had felt in the Canaanite wilderness; how she had tried but seemingly failed to please Sarah or fit into her new life; how unfair it was that she would never have her own husband and children; how she had been robbed of her innocence when Sarah commanded her to sleep with Abraham; how surreal it had been to discover she was carrying his baby; how she had taken advantage of the situation, knowing she was carrying Abraham’s treasured heir; how she had despised and rebelled against Sarah for forcing her into motherhood before she was a wife; how Abraham, after impregnating her, had shown her such indifference and looked the other way when Sarah abused her; how Sarah had stripped her of her privileges, slapped her, and sent her back to the servants’ quarters.
I’m sure that the more she thought about it, the more blurred her vision became. Reliving what Sarah had done to her kept Hagar blinded to what she had done to Sarah.
Are your spiritual eyes also squeezed tightly shut as you relive over and over again the hurtful actions or words that have wounded you? The memory of one impossible expectation or one infuriating expression, one unfair decision or one unreasonable demand, one injustice or one insult, one wound or one wrong, can bring back to our minds another one and another one until we are smothered in a nasty heap of ugliness that hardens our hearts and embitters our spirit and blinds us to the obvious — our own faults and sin.
It’s both interesting and sad to think how easily you and I can see the faults in others while absolving ourselves of responsibility for what our actions or words may have provoked. Although Sarah’s behavior could indeed have been characterized as mean, Hagar failed to acknowledge how her contempt and scorn had provoked Sarah.3 When we are wounded, hurt feelings and injured pride can distort our perspective and our focus. In self-defense, we want to explain and excuse and blame the ones who wounded us. We want to prove our point — I was right; they were wrong. How dare they treat me this way! We tend to rationalize our own behavior while holding others to a standard we don’t apply to ourselves. It’s revealing to note that when we point a finger at someone else, we literally have three fingers pointing back at ourselves!
Jesus addressed this spiritual blindness in the Sermon on the Mount when He admonished the crowd: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”4
When you and I focus on the speck of sin in the other person’s life while paying no attention to the plank in our own, God will begin to get our attention. He may use a lack of peace, an absence of joy, an agitation of spirit, a knot in the pit of our stomachs, a dullness or depression in our emotions, or something else to alert us that we are not all right. Because God truly loves you and me, He won’t let us get by with excuses, rationalizations, and self-defense. A spiritual blind spot is something He will seek to correct.
The correction can be hard to take when it comes through someone else. For myself, I want to give the Angel of the Lord my full attention in order for the correction to come from Him, not another person. In my experience, when it does come from Him, although it is specifically pinpointed, He opens my eyes of self-awareness quite gently and lovingly, yet firmly. There is no blame or condemnation. Just truth and light and assurance that as I confess and submit to His correction I am right with Him, and I have the hope that one day I will be right with others. He taught me this in a fresh way not too long ago …
A lovely and longtime friend emailed me one day to set up a time when she could talk with me about something on her mind. She didn’t tell me what it was, just that she needed some time to talk. I knew she was aware that I was going through a difficult time, both personally and in ministry. She had helped me with some ministry initiatives in the past, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps she wanted to offer her assistance once again.
When we met, I embraced her warmly, and we spent twenty minutes or so just catching up as friends. She described a broken relationship between her siblings and how grieved she was at their unwillingness to forgive one another. I assured her I would pray for healing in her family relationships. Then I asked why she had wanted to meet with me. In tears, she explained that because I had hurt her in the past, she had made the decision not to help me with the ministry challenges I was currently facing. In fact, she said she could no longer help me in any way again. I was so caught off guard that I was stunned. She was effectively severing our relationship. At the moment I was incapable of doing anything except just sitting and staring at her, utterly speechless. While I had no words to respond, I was truly amazed by the irony. Because my friend could clearly see the sin of unforgiveness at work in the lives of her siblings, yet she seemed totally blind to her own unwillingness to forgive me for what she felt were past hurts. My mind reeled in confusion and consternation as I wondered what sin in my life I was blind to that had hurt her to such an extreme that she would take this action.
If my friend’s purpose in meeting with me was to wound me as she felt I had wounded her, she succeeded. But what was really accomplished? Instead of continuing our conversation and seeking reconciliation, she broke our relationship, an action that I believe grieved the heart of God. And it was carried out within moments of requesting prayer for reconciliation in her own family. That’s blindness. Spiritual macular degeneration.
I came away from that meeting more determined than ever to have my own eyes opened to the plank that must have been there. I couldn’t help but wonder what I had done to wound her, and if I had wounded her so deeply, could it be I was also wounding others without knowing it? I did not, and do not, want to suffer from spiritual macular degeneration. Especially when it results in hurting someone else.
In spite of the fact that I want to “see,” I’ve found it difficult, if not impossible, to open my own eyes. I know I have blind spots, but I just can’t see them. Actually, that’s why they are called blind spots. So this past year, following the meeting with my friend and in preparation for leading a revival, I decided to ask God to do for me what the Angel of the Lord did for Hagar. I asked Him to show me my blind spots. And He did. At least He showed me some of them. I am quite sure there are more.
When I asked God to shine the light of His truth deep into my heart, I had to make the time for Him to do so. Practically, this meant that I spent a significant portion of each and every day for about two months searching for anything that was not pleasing to Him. To help me focus, I used a spiral-bound book that had been given to me by a friend and was developed to deepen and enrich a believer’s prayer life.5 In the book were several lists: Names of sins. Categories of sins. Definitions of sins. Antidotes to sins. Confessions of sins. Forgiveness for sins with hundreds of Scripture references. It was exactly what I needed to help me see.
Because God is faithful and able to open the eyes of the blind, He answered my prayer. He opened my eyes as I read through the lists of sins … meditating on just a few every day. When I worked my way through all of the lists, I went back and worked my way through them again. Then I did it for a third time. I can tell you it was not pleasant. It was not comfortable. In fact, it was painful and required courage even to look at myself the way God was revealing me to be in His eyes. But it was also deeply cleansing. And corrective. And very freeing.
While I won’t share with you the various sins that God pinpointed in my life, I will share one, because I had been so totally blind to it. It was listed in the category of “control,” which is sin that dishonors God’s sovereignty. And there is was: perfectionism. It st
opped me cold. I froze when my eyes came to it in my first reading of the list. I didn’t need to read the list three times to know that was me. I’m a perfectionist. But I had never considered that to be a sin. In fact, I had thought it was a strength as it challenges me to strive for excellence, and in turn, I have challenged my family and those I work with to strive for excellence also. But what I had never seen is that my perfectionism, taken to the extreme, had been used to control others. While focused on the speck in the eyes of others, I had ignored the plank in my own. As my sin came clearly into focus, I immediately, earnestly confessed it and told the Lord how very sorry I was for having dishonored His sovereignty in such a manner. Then I humbly asked Him to heal those I had unconsciously wounded as a result.
Like me, and perhaps like you, Hagar had been focused on the speck of sawdust — Sarah’s wrongdoing —while ignoring the plank of arrogance in her own life. So God’s instructions to Hagar were clear, comforting, but corrective and firm: “Go back to your mistress and submit to her… . I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.”6 In other words, Hagar, the only way to resolve this entire mess is to refocus. You’re missing the obvious. You’re not responsible for “fixing” Sarah. She may never acknowledge that what she did to you was wrong. But you are responsible for your own words and behavior. You must turn around. Go back. Humble yourself. Face the consequences. If you do, Hagar, I will bless you, your son, your grandchildren, and your future generations immeasurably. I will give you an honored place in history. Because I not only care about your wound, Hagar, I care about you.
Amazingly, Hagar did turn around. Not petulantly, reluctantly, or with hesitation, but with the joy of knowing that not just Abraham, but now she herself— an Egyptian slave — had a personal relationship with the living God, the Creator of the Universe! Her wounded heart was filled with the wonder of His grace and love and personal attention as she exclaimed, “You are the God who sees me … I have now seen the One who sees me.”7 The blind spot was gone, and her vision was 20/20!
The Bible describes the turnaround as repentance. For me, like Hagar, it wasn’t enough just to have a name for my blind spot. It wasn’t enough to have had a fresh encounter with the One who sees me, inside and out. I had to turn around. While I did choose to repent, carrying through on that decision has been an ongoing effort as I work out the practical application. Because I’m still a perfectionist. But I have had to train myself to see the difference between excellence and control, giving those around me, including myself, the freedom to fail and fall short of my standards. I find myself continually tested on my willingness to let go of control while still lifting up the standard of excellence. They are tests that, by God’s grace and power, I want to pass. One by one. Day by day. Until I overcome the sin that has been so blinding. But to pass those tests, I must be willing to turn around. To repent of my sin. To stop it.
What about you? Have you acknowledged your sin that you now see, but you have yet to turn around? Until you are willing to repent of your sin, you will never overcome it. And you will miss the blessing that God has for you. Repentance is vital if you and I are to successfully continue on our journey to healing.
Wounded people need to repent of their sin. And the wounders need to repent also. Sarah herself had suffered from a severe case of spiritual macular degeneration. One can only imagine the look on her face when Hagar returned. Consternation. Anger. Guilt. Misery. I wonder if the shock of seeing Hagar jolted Sarah’s vision so that she also began to see more clearly. She had been the one who suggested to Abraham that he have a child by Hagar. Yet when Hagar became pregnant and arrogantly despised her barren mistress, Sarah illogically, unreasonably, and blindly pointed an accusing finger at Abraham: “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.”8 Sarah blamed her husband for a situation she herself had arranged! It might seem ludicrous if it wasn’t so much like what all of us do when we allow our wounds to blind us. That’s the most striking characteristic of a blind spot — it can be easily seen by everyone … except ourselves.
Sarah must have thought she could easily get rid of her problem with just a sharp word and the slap of her hand. But when Hagar returned, Sarah no doubt had to do some serious soul-searching and heart-cleansing and sin-repenting of her own. For the next fifteen years or so, we don’t hear anything about her or from her. She slips into the background of Abraham’s life and appears to live quietly with the consequences of her choices. And this would not have been easy for her because, several months after her servant returned, “Hagar bore Abram a son.”9
Could it be that you, like Sarah, are also missing the obvious? Have you lashed out and wounded someone who wounded you? It may be something that seems much less than what the other person did to you. And maybe it actually is. But don’t overlook it. Maybe that’s why God has allowed the consequences to come back into your life.
If you and I really want the wounds within to heal, then we need to be brutally honest with ourselves. We need to stop focusing on them and ask God to open our eyes to our own faults. We need to have the courage to truly look at ourselves, as painful as it may be. Then turn around. Leave behind any pride … rebellion … rationalization … excuses … self-defense … and self-pity. Turning around is a courageous choice —it’s hard to do! It can hurt to take the plank out of your own eye, confront the past, change your focus, die to your pride, admit your wrong, deny your vengeance, face the person, risk another wound. And it takes courage to say you’re sorry — sorry for your own planks and pride, shortcomings and sin, faults and failures — while leaving the other person to God. Yet, I can almost hear the applause in heaven as those who have gone before encourage and challenge you and me: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”10
The time for refreshing has come, but you and I must be willing to open our eyes. Then turn around. Turn around!
SEVEN
Wounding Hurts
Doing the Right Thing Can Be Painful to the Wounder
Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy.
Genesis 21:1–14
As I was driving down the road one day recently, I noticed a gardener pruning a tree. I knew that the type of tree he was pruning required cutting out old branches to make room for the new growth. The beautiful summer flowers the tree is known for will not blossom on old limbs. Then God seemed to whisper in my ear, gently reminding me of the Heavenly Gardener who lovingly prunes the branches attached to the Vine.
Fruit on a vine is only borne in abundance on tender, new growth. As the wood of a branch gets older, it ten
ds to harden. So even though a branch may be alive and connected to the vine, it can still fail to produce fruit. While leaving the branch connected to the vine, a gardener cuts back the old, hard wood, forcing the vine into new growth that will produce fruit instead of just leaves. In fact, there are times when a gardener cuts back the branch so drastically that all that is left is the nub where it is connected to the vine. As I drove by the gardener pruning the tree, it occurred to me that his pruning could be described as wounding.
Later, I went back and reread the illustration of a vine that Jesus used to describe our relationship to Him: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”1 He was describing the intentional wounding that results from God’s pruning in a believer’s life.
Does it hurt the Gardener to cut back the branch so far? I believe it does. But the writer to the Hebrews offers a key insight when he states, “No discipline [wounding or pruning] seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”2 My guess is that the hurting heart of the Divine Wounder must surely be soothed when the result is abundant blessing and fruit.
Abraham was a wounder. When God initially called him to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, he obediently left everything behind in order to pursue God. In the beginning, one of his primary reasons for living a life of faith was God’s promise of a son and descendants more numerous than stars in the sky.3 Abraham may have been intrigued at the prospect of millions upon millions of descendants, but all he really wanted was one son to call his own. One baby he could hold. One boy he could talk to and teach, play with and enjoy, give things to and love. One son to whom he could leave everything. Just one descendant would be enough.
Wounded by God's People Page 7
