Pillar 4: Heart-Healing

Science now over 300 psychiatric diagnoses for hurting people, and I am trained in making these diagnoses, which have some usefulness in understanding and treating human distress. However, I actually have but one "diagnosis" or hurting people, which I believe is "God's diagnosis:" Broken-heartedness (see Psalms 147:3; Isaiah 61:1). As a trained professional healthcare provider, I will recognize the biological, psychological, or social context of your problem, and assess your problem with my clinical knowledge and skills, as I am trained to do. However, my focus will not be on these labels, but upon your heart and its healing. Why the heart? Three reasons:

1. God's own focus is upon your heart (see 1 Samuel 16:7); the heart is the core of who you are (Proverbs 27:19) 

2. It is with the heart that believe (Romans 10:9-10) and commune with God;

3. It is the heart that is broken and needing mending (Ps 147:4; Is 61:1; Luke 4:18, NKJ).

The psalms as our resource. The psalms attest to the fact that David was in the habit of emotional honestly before God, bringing his negative feelings to God on a consistent basis. When David allowed himself to experience his emotions intensely in God's presence, while tuning into God's Holy Spirit speaking to his spirit, miraculous transformation followed: So many of his psalms beginning in despair ended in praise! The principle to learn here is this: we need to experience our hearts -- as they are, with our hurts, fears, and anger -- while experiencing God as He is. For many hurting people, this can be difficult without the help of a skilled and experienced Christian counselor. The book of Psalms provide an excellent map of the geography of the human heart.  David's psalms express the same negative emotions you and I experience, but in words that express our pain in poetic metaphor, the language of the heart: fear, despair, loneliness, overwhelmed, trapped, anger, rage, hate, are all in the psalms. The psalms help us experience and express our brokenness in the presence of God-the-Healer.

 

Almost daily in my practice, I witness God heal and mend the broken-hearted (Psalms 147:4). God uses me merely as His instrument in helping people experience their brokenness. Jesus did not come to heal those who are well (Mt 9:12). He came to heal the brokenhearted (see Is 61:1 and Luke 4:18, NKJ). He cannot heal and mend that which is not broken. Please know this: Dr. Scott Lownsdale cannot mend brokenness. Nor can Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth, Dr. Laura, nor an entire team of mental health professionals. Indeed, if we try to heal your brokenness without God, it's the Humpty Dumpty story all over again. Only God can heal brokenness, and He does so magnificently!