Langdon's Devotional

"In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." Ecclesiastes 7:14 (ESV) Preface This the conclusion of a series of posts on the nature of emotional pain, what it can reveal about our hearts and minds, and the purpose it has in our walk with Christ. If you want the full context, start from the  beginning . Conclusion and Personal Note I won't lie, when I started this series, I half-expected to suddenly have this new understanding of emotional pain that would allow me to never suffer it the same way again. I know how naive that sounds, but I think it's halfway true. What I've learned is that pain is simply the side effect that love gives us, because of sin. There is no love without pain. But that also means there's no pain, without love. When we hurt, it means that at some point, we were given the opportunity to love. When we'r...

   "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3 (ESV) Preface This is part of a series of posts on the nature of emotional pain, what it can reveal about our hearts and minds, and the purpose it has in our walk with Christ. If you want the full context, start from the  beginning . Restoration It's taken me a while to finish up with this one, as you can tell. That's partly because I've been working on some other drafts that just don't look the way I want them to yet. But it's mainly because I've been struggling to find a way to conclude this in a way that feels satisfying, but genuine. I think what I'm struggling with is that I want to end it in a really positive light, but if I only did that, I think I'd be minimizing how impactful emotional wounds can be in our lives. In Jeremiah 30, the Lord promises to Jeremiah that He will restore Jerusalem, as it's in the process of being destroyed by the Babylonians. The same is...

 "For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too."  2 Corinthians 1:5 (ESV) Preface This is part of a series of posts on the nature of emotional pain, what it can reveal about our hearts and minds, and the purpose it has in our walk with Christ. If you want the full context, start from the beginning . Living with Pain Unfortunately, even though we can have a better understanding of what pain tells us, it doesn't necessarily make pain easy to deal with. Pain is, by definition, difficult to tolerate. I ignorantly wish that having Christian wisdom meant killing pain, but the unfortunate truth is that we can only learn how to divert pain to turn it into growth. We can't really prevent ourselves from feeling what's meant to be a reminder of sin. Could we eliminate it completely, we would have to be living in a world free from sin. Our flesh battles with our spirit – a lifelong battle that is the source of all...

"... but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope ..."  Romans 5:3-4 (ESV)   Preface This is part of a series of posts on the nature of emotional pain, what it can reveal about our hearts and minds, and the purpose it has in our walk with Christ. If you haven't read the first part , I'd suggest checking that one out first for the full context. Or don't. I won't stop you. Pain is an Indicator Think of emotional pain as the numbers on a meter that gauges the status or condition of our spirit. Emotional pain is not the problem itself. It's a symptom of the problem. When we get a physical wound, usually the first thing that comes to mind is the pain. That's how we know there's a problem and how bad it is. But oftentimes we misjudge what the actual issue is. Dr. Priolo gave two great examples . Let's say you wake up in the middle of the night, from the best...

 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 'I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.' "   Jeremiah 17:9-10 (ESV) Introduction Going to start a series of posts that look a little different than my usual format. I recently listened to a sermon by Dr. Lou Priolo – a wise man to some of my friends, a Godly man in my church, and a friend of my grandad, who remembers him fondly. Though he went to be with the Lord recently, he's remembered by many as being very wise not only in Scripture, but in his understanding of our psychological habits from a Christian perspective. The sermon that I listened to was the first in a series about "thinking like a Christian," and how we can better understand some common thought patterns and habits. During his sermon, he talked about emotional wounds, and drew some parallels between them and physical ...