4 Things God Will Do When Your Heart Needs Deep Healing

How will you know when your heart needs deep healing and what will God do to bring you this healing? Here are 4 things to consider.

1. When Your Heart Needs Deep Healing, God Won’t Let You Move Forward in Life

For example, perhaps you are in a prolonged season of unwanted singleness and no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to meet the right person. But maybe you have also not been healed from previous wounds in your past. Without getting healing first, God knows you will not be able to thrive in the good relationship he wants to give you; thus it’s possible he’s not letting you move into that season until you first receive his healing. 

Look at the life of David. Each season prepared him for the next. He was a shepherd before he was a warrior. He was a warrior before he was a general. He was a general before he was a king. And he was King of Judah before he was King over both Israel and Judah. As David said in Psalm 144:1, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle . . . .”

2. When Your Heart Needs Deep Healing, It Will Feel Like the Same Wounds Keep Happening to You

Does it feel like everyone is judging you? Does it feel like everyone eventually betrays you? Or does it feel like everyone just sees you as a friend but nothing more?

Sometimes God will allow the same issue to keep happening to us over and over again because there is one big wound in our past that is echoing through these smaller wounds that seem to keep happening to us.

The fact is, everyone can feel judged, betrayed, and unwanted if they have the eyes to constantly see this happening in their lives. When we have a deep wound in our hearts, it makes us hypersensitive to smaller issues in the present. When these same things happen to someone else who doesn’t have this huge wound in their past in that particular area, these little hurts don’t have as big an impact. But when you grew up in a judgmental home or your dad cheated on your mom or you fell in love with your best friend but they rejected you, these past events can come to define you, which then multiply the power of smaller hurts in the present that antagonize this deep wound within you.

God will allow this so you turn to him for the deep healing you need, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3)

3. When Your Heart Needs Deep Healing, There Will Be No Way Forward Except Forgiveness and Grace

So far we’ve really been talking about how to identify the need for deep healing. But how can you actually receive the deep healing that you need from God?

Ultimately it always comes back to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can receive the forgiveness we need and we can also offer other people the forgiveness they need from us.

The truth is, nothing can be done (humanly speaking) to make right the wrongs that have happened in our past. Even if you got revenge on someone who hurt you badly, even if you did exactly what they did to you – your heart would still be hurt. The only solution is grace.

Grace substitutes human sin with God’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). When you believe the gospel, it can heal your heart because you know God is giving you the fullness and perfection of Christ (Ezekiel 36:25-27). Christ’s heart is not wounded with sin, it’s not broken because of bad choices, and it’s not stuck in bitterness because of others. And through faith and by grace, we can receive the heart of Christ, becoming a new creation – healed and made whole (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As Galatians 2:20 states, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

4. When Your Heart Needs Deep Healing, God Will Be Close to You

There is a blessing in brokenness if you have the eyes to see it. Through pain, God makes us open to his presence. Like a crack in a stone wall, so our wounds can be on our heart. Yes, wounds hurt, but sometimes without them, we would never let God in. Through the deep wound, you can experience a deep closeness with Christ. As Psalm 34:17-19 promises:

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Do you need to forgive someone who hurt you deeply? Here’s a related article called How to Forgive Someone Who Has Hurt You Deeply.