EPHESIANS 4:26

Be angry, but don’t sin — don’t let the sun go down before you have dealt with the cause of your anger;

Ephesians 4:26 (Complete Jewish Bible)

Suggested reading: Ephesians 4:26; Psalm 4:4-5

Be angry? Has God really told us that it is okay to be angry? Yes! However, He qualified that statement by adding the phrase but don’t sin. The Bible clearly gives us examples of times when our Most High God was angry and when His Son, Jesus, was angry. Righteous anger—godly anger—is not sin, but can turn into sin if we let it. We must recognize the difference.

It is absolutely normal to feel anger when someone or something has caused us pain and trauma. In fact, anger is often attached to emotional and spiritual pain in our hearts. However, ungodly anger can grow into bitterness, which can then lead to other destructive emotions if it is not dealt with in our hearts and spirits. It can also cause physical illness. We must be very careful how far we allow the emotion of anger to progress, because we are the ones who will ultimately suffer damage to our hearts, bodies and spirits. We need to avoid letting anger develop into sin. If that has happened, we must ask God to forgive us in Jesus’ name.

Our hearts can even become hardened concerning God if we are not cautious regarding anger. Healing for our broken hearts is more difficult as a result. Hardened hearts turn away from God—the One who can release the pain and heal them. Asking Jesus to release the pain and anger from our hearts and spirits and asking the Holy Spirit to apply His healing balm are part of the inner healing process. Hardened, broken hearts can be healed by the Lord!

PROVERBS 3:5-6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

Suggested reading: Proverbs 3:5-8

Trusting the Lord with all your heart is very difficult if your heart has been broken into a hundred pieces by some painful and traumatic event. Those pieces of your heart that carry the emotional pain often make you unable to trust. Until that pain is released and those places in your heart are healed, your ability to trust anyone, including the Lord, is hindered. This is one reason that pursuing healing for your broken heart is so important.

Leaning on your own understanding can result in making unnecessary mistakes that could be avoided by first asking the Lord to show you the decisions that you should make and the way to proceed. He wants to guide you down the best and safest path for your life. However, you have to ask Him and then obey what He tells you to do.

The only safe path in any situation is the one that the Lord knows will be best for you. To understand what direction you should take, you must first acknowledge the Lord. Accept that He exists and loves you more than you can imagine. Receive His free gift of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. Thank God for loving you and for forgiving your sins. Then ask Him how to proceed in every circumstance, including those that involve receiving healing for your broken heart. God’s love is the healing balm needed for broken hearts!

ROMANS 8:37

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Romans 8:37 (NKJV)

Suggested reading: Romans 8:31-39

How often do we feel like victims? That is not uncommon if we have suffered emotional pain or trauma. However, according to the Bible, we are more than conquerors if Jesus Christ is our personal Lord and Savior. The victim identities that the devil would like us to embrace will keep us depressed and feeling defeated if we allow ourselves to believe him. Through Jesus Christ, we can have victory over all the pain and trauma that has caused our hearts and spirits to be broken!

How we see ourselves plays a huge role in our emotional and spiritual healing. It is easy to become extremely discouraged when people mistreat and abuse us, when we lose a loved one, or when we go through other traumatic situations. However, we must remember that our victory and healing come from our Most High God and His Son, Jesus. We are in a battle for that victory and healing, and at times, we get knocked down. However, we cannot allow the enemy to keep us down by forgetting what God’s Word says about us.

We must decide to stop thinking of ourselves as victims. Many believers are survivors of horrible emotional pain and trauma. However, we are even more than survivors—in Christ, we are more than conquerors! When times get difficult, we must draw closer to the Lord and ask Him to hold us and heal our hearts with His tremendously powerful love. His love for us holds the key to our inner healing, freedom and victory!

ISAIAH 53:3

He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Isaiah 53:3 (NKJV)

Suggested reading: Isaiah 53:1-3

Jesus was a Man of Sorrows when He walked this earth. He was definitely acquainted with grief. Besides what He suffered as He was beaten and crucified, Jesus wept when He saw the emotional pain that Mary expressed over the death of her brother, Lazarus. Jesus was rejected by many, betrayed by Judas and abandoned by His disciples. He was despised by the religious leaders of His day and is still despised and rejected by a large portion of this world’s population.

The Son of God, Jesus Christ, understands the emotional pain and sorrow that we feel in our hearts. He understands how traumatic experiences break our hearts. Jesus does not stand by our sides during those times without true compassion for us. He loves us and hurts with us! 

The perfect will of our Most High God is for us to be healed and set free from the sorrow and pain in our hearts. He sent His Son to help us receive freedom from pain and trauma, but we have to take an active part in our healing. We must first accept the gift of salvation by confessing our sins and asking Jesus to be our personal Lord and Savior. Our loving, heavenly Father will forgive us when we do so. Then, we can ask Him to begin the process of emotional and spiritual healing that we so desperately need. Joy and peace will follow as we yield to the will of the God of the Universe.

LUKE 4:18

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

Luke 4:18 (NKJV)

Suggested reading: Luke 4:16-21

Jesus came to set the captives free—free from their bondage to sin, spiritual death and eternity in Hell. Jesus also came to heal the brokenhearted! Situations that cause us to be brokenhearted include the death of a loved one, a divorce, any type of abuse, domestic violence, abandonment, rejection, accidents and natural disasters. If you are brokenhearted as a result of one or more of those things, you are carrying emotional pain in your heart. Your spirit can also be wounded by those traumatic experiences.

It is common to repress or “stuff” that emotional and spiritual pain without even realizing you are doing so. It helps to talk to another genuine Christian about the pain and trauma that you have experienced in your life. You may want to seek help from a trained, compassionate and empathetic Christian counselor or minister. However, unless the pain is released from your heart and spirit, you will not be at peace. You will not be able to experience true joy as long as the emotional and spiritual pain are festering inside you.

After you have sincerely asked Jesus Christ to be your personal Lord and Savior and asked God to forgive your sins in Jesus’ name, you must repent by changing your behavior to line up with God’s Word. Then, true freedom and joy can be obtained as Jesus Christ releases pain and trauma from your heart and spirit. Ask Jesus to reveal anything that is keeping your heart broken and your spirit from experiencing His peace and joy. Then, ask Him to gently begin the healing process. Jesus wants to heal your broken heart and spirit! 

ISAIAH 30:15

For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel has said this,

“In returning [to Me] and rest you shall be saved,
In quietness and confident trust is your strength.” But you were not willing,

Isaiah 30:15 (AMP)

Suggested reading: Isaiah 30:15-18

We definitely do not feel strong when our hearts have been broken by some horrible experience. The emotional and spiritual pain can be overwhelming. The darkness attached to the trauma seems to overshadow everything else in our lives. Quietness and confident trust are incredible tools that are available to us. However, they are two things that do not come easily to most people. Anxiety, fear and doubt seem to manifest more frequently in response to traumatic situations. 

Too often, we try to take matters into our own hands and do something to numb the pain, or repair the damage that was done as a result of what happened to us. When we stop trying to fix things ourselves, we will realize that the Lord is the only One with the wisdom and power needed to intervene on our behalf. As we remember to return to our Father God and rest in His presence, our hearts can receive His love, peace, comfort and healing.

It takes practice and godly determination for us to turn to the Lord in quietness and trust in spite of the circumstances in our lives. The Lord waits with open arms for us to do just that. He knows that returning to Him and resting in quietness and confident trust will bring us strength. However, we must be willing to do so. The healing of our broken hearts and spirits depends on our obedience to follow the Lord’s instructions. We must return to Him, rest in His arms, and trust that He will keep His promises.

JOHN 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

John 14:6 (NKJV)

Suggested reading: John 14:1-6

Jesus is the way, not only to Father God, but also the way to receive healing for our broken hearts! Destructive methods of coping with emotional and spiritual pain such as using drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, or other destructive coping methods are not the way to receive healing for pain and trauma. Those things may temporarily numb the pain, but they do not remove the pain. They only cause more problems and do not heal the damage to our hearts and spirits.

When Jesus removes emotional and spiritual pain, it is gone for good! There may be pain in our hearts and spirits from several, or even many, hurtful and traumatic situations we experienced during our lifetimes. Jesus is able to release all of it. However, He does not normally do that all at once. It usually happens as a process over time.

The first step in the most incredible healing journey is to ask Jesus Christ to be our personal Lord and Savior. Thanking Him for what He did for us on the cross and surrendering our lives to the Lord begins the process of healing and freedom that we all need. Jesus loves us very much and He wants to heal our broken hearts and wounded spirits. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Genuine hope, joy and peace are only available to us through His incomparable love!

PSALM 112:7

They will have no fear of bad news;
    their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

Psalm 112:7 (NIV)

Suggested reading: Psalm 112:6-8

Trusting in the Lord can be difficult when our hearts are broken. The devil will try to use bad news, emotional pain, and trauma in our lives to decrease, or destroy, our trust and faith in the Lord. Broken hearts are not always steadfast. That is why it is so important to receive healing for emotional pain. The very process that can help us is often avoided due to fear and a lack of trust.

Those with broken hearts have difficulty trusting—period. Once we are hurt severely by someone, or something that occurred in our lives, we may be very hesitant to be vulnerable and trust again. Even trusting our Most High God can become a huge problem. However, we must always remember that God works all things for our good if we love Him and have dedicated our lives to following Him and His Son, Jesus. We must strive to be unwavering in believing and trusting the Lord in spite of the pain we are suffering.

The Lord’s tender love will often draw us to come to Him for inner healing. By asking Jesus to release the emotional and spiritual pain that we have been carrying for months, years, or even decades, we will be on the path to having a healed heart. It usually takes time for this to be accomplished completely, but being in the healing process is better than the alternative. Many of our sins may be pain-driven. Therefore, pursuing healing for our broken hearts will help prevent the devil from using the pain in our hearts, minds and spirits to lead us into sin. We must never give up hope of the possibility of being healed. We must be steadfast and trust in the Lord!