Heart Tracks - Whose Story?

"From now on, don't let anyone trouble me with these things. For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus." Galatians 6:17...."He tells His story through our scars." Sheila Walsh

I don't think anyone would consider scars, be they physical, emotional, or spiritual, to be attractive on any level. We tend to think of them as something that leaves us disfigured, less appealing, even ugly. We can have a whole range of emotions and thoughts about them, from embarrassment to outright shame. We can try to hide them, even deny them, but they're there, in every life. As believers, how should we see and experience them?

The Apostle Paul knew suffering. A great deal of suffering, and in every level of his life. Yet they were not scars that caused him shame or that he sought to deny. For Paul, the scars that the enemy sought to use to wreak havoc in his life and ministry, were instead proof of the reality that he belonged to Christ and Christ alone. And the power of his ministry and witness was sealed by those very scars. He knew the truth of Walsh's above words. He knew that His Lord and Savior told His story through his scars. It was a story of His triumph and victory. A story of His power to overcome in Paul's life, the very worst that all the might of the devil and the world could bring against him. Jesus Christ told His story of strength in the midst of weakness, hope in the midst of despair, light in the midst of darkness, and life in the midst of death. As a man, Paul walked through all of these places, and all of these places scarred him. Yet Jesus Christ used these scars and events to tell the story of His redeeming, healing, and transforming life in all of it. He told His story through the scars in Paul's life. Can He also tell His story through your scars and mine?

A great part of our problem is that many of our wounds never do become scars. They just remain open, bleeding, and unhealed. They cripple us in the emotional and spiritual realm. We live in perpetual mourning, or anger, or bitterness and unforgiveness. And because of this, it's the enemy's story and not His that gets told in our lives. The story of our enemy is that in this fallen world we can never live a risen life. That in this world of chaos we can never know His rest and peace. That in the midst of the darkness His light cannot reach us. It is a story that is nothing but a lie, but it is a lie that we allow to be constantly repeated through us because we won't allow Him to heal the wounds, and minister to and through the scars. Christ bears the scars of the cross. They are the proof of His victory. Bring your wounds, all of them, to Him in surrender. Allow Him to make them marks of His victory in you.

As I said, we all have scars. A story will be told through yours and through mine. It will be the story of the King, or that of the usurper, satan. Whose story is being told through yours today, and tomorrow, and the days after? Who do your scars show you to belong to?

Blessings,
Pastor O