Trading our Sorrows

I heard a short teaching time last night related to healing, based on the worship song, “I’m Trading My Sorrows,” which includes the chorus, “Yes, Lord, Yes.” The presenter referred to the fact that healing is often closely related to how much we say “yes” to the Lord, but that it also relates to how fully and honestly we embrace (say "yes" to) our suffering and sorrow. There are times when we suffer and endure sorrow due to decisions which other people make rather than due to our own choices. This can cause deep feelings of anger and resentment. For healing to occur in our lives, we must come to a point where we acknowledge and own those feelings as being real, rather than keeping them pushed down. God won’t heal things that we insist on hiding from Him.

Once we acknowledge and own the feelings, we must choose to say “yes” to our unjust suffering. We must choose to embrace it, accept it. In this sense, we not only say “yes” to the Lord, but we also say “yes” to our sorrow and suffering. There are things in our lives that we simply have to surrender to, and then God can redeem them. He cannot redeem them if we keep saying “no” to them. Integrity and truth have to come together. Because Jesus became a man of sorrows He can take our sorrows. If we will deal with our sorrows with truthful acknowledgement and integrity, we can trade our sorrows for the joy of the Lord.