When you encounter someone who is emotional, edgy and spiraling downward try to remember that it's not our job to put all their broken pieces back together, it's Gods. We are not saviors, Christ is the Savior. We need to humble ourselves before the Lord and be servants to His work. When He has dealt with me, I recall His stillness and sense of peace as He would listen to my lamentations. In His wisdom He knows that all the words we're crying out are coming from a deeper place, our BOTTOM CRY. His love sees straight through to the heart of our pain and it's from there He wants to begin healing us. Only God can love and heal at that level.
He does use us though, to be His hands, eyes, ears and mouth. We need to be a source of God's love for the hurting and use our arms to hold them, our eyes to relate to them and our ears to hear them. We need to let Jesus love through us. BUT, we have to pray for wisdom regarding Gods perfect timing! Nothing can replace the sacred time that a soul spends alone with their God. Many times prayer is our only current duty but so many times we take the wheel from God and try to fix everything in our timing. In those times when darkness overwhelms, it is only God who can work in the dark. In the book of Job 38:2, God says to Job regarding a friend who is trying to counsel in the darkness, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" Read Job, chapter 38-42, you will be blown away by the rebuke of God to those who try to do His work as oppose to the work God instructs them to do!
I've always been a fixer, someone who jumps into another persons mess with my opinions. Yet, as I mature in the faith, I am learning to just be available to God and to stop blocking Gods work. His timing is perfect, not mine, and I can do irreparable harm by jumping in front of Him. We would be shocked to death if we truly understood the damage that is done when we talk over God! (Seriously, read those chapters in the book of Job!)
The Bottom Cry is a wailing from the soul that only God knows how to comfort and guide. Let people know that you are there, whether it be at a distance in prayer or just to sit and listen...but don't counsel until they ask or until God's Spirit moves you. More of God's love shines through our actions than our words. People need what only God can offer yet we try to take over and it only hinders the work of grace and healing. Our responsibility is to get our own hearts right with God. We cannot comfort or offer wisdom to someone unless we have layed ourselves out before God first. It's so easy to work on other people because we think if we shine a light on them then Gods light will be off of us.
The rawness and vulnerability of our bottom cry is a beautiful thing and we shouldn't be in such a hurry to get away from that place. We try to rush others into comfort as well as ourselves because we fear the place of sorrow. But, Jesus was a man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:3) and He doesn't want us rushing to feel good, He wants us to sit with Him so He can comfort, counsel, empathize and heal us from the inside out. The bottom cry, the place of sorrow is Christ's wheel-house, it is in His embrace where we must begin that journey. Then, at the perfect time He will call us to reach out to someone.
Psalm 4, "Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer."
John 13:23, " John, leaned in and put his head on Jesus' breast..."
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