“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”― C.S. Lewis

Do you ever feel like a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character? Desperately wanting to do the right thing but choosing instead to do the thing that you know is detrimental to you, that you know you are going to feel guilty about at a later stage?

Do you ever wonder ‘why on earth did I say/act/do that?’
What on earth possessed me?
Why do I persist in behaving in a negative way?
We so often don’t even know our own thoughts.
You are not alone in feeling this way.  The majority of us often feel that way …who am I?  what purpose do I serve? I will never be able to change!
I am so blessed, why I am feeling depressed, burnt out?

There are so many things that we battle with.  Anger, being judgmental, fear, substance abuse, addictions, worry, self-worthlessness, self-pity, rejection, loneliness… the list is endless.

When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour we are immediately sanctified – God declares us Holy. There is nothing we can add to that.  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast”. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

However, we need to continue to work out that salvation becoming more and more like Christ until the day we die. Philippians 2:12 “…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”.

And yet, we struggle.  We struggle to forgive ourselves, we struggle to forgive others, we struggle with addictions, we struggle with worry …we struggle with self-rejection…

We look at other people, who when they come to know the Lord, are immediately set free from things that have plagued them in the past.  They are instantly and miraculously healed from an illness/addiction/bad habit etc whilst the rest of us just continue to struggle. We feel overwhelmed by the unfairness of it.

Jesus said “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because …He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).

There are so many of us today who are badly bruised, blinded to God’s healing power, and kept in prison through the chains we ourselves have made!

What would it mean if, instead of us praying for healing, for deliverance from an addiction/habit, for healed relationships, we asked God instead for:

the courage to seek help
the courage to admit we have an addiction
the courage to face the situation we are in
the courage to be honest with those around us
the courage to admit we are lonely

Oswald Chambers said the following about prayer, about asking God for things:

“To say that ‘prayer changes things’ is not as close to the truth as saying, ‘prayer changes me and then I change things.’ God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.”

Tell God what it is you are struggling with and ask Him to guide you.

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