Ps Darin Browne @ Ignite Christian Church
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Last week we looked at a problem we all face at some time... A broken heart. This tends to be an acute problem, but what happens after you have had your heart broken, maybe again and again, and what happens if you don't deal with it, and never get over it?
It turns into heartache!
So if you take a broken heart, think about it, sleep on it, analyse it, give yourself guilt trips on what you should have or shouldn't have said, sleep on it a bit more, toss and turn, etc... That's heartache!
As we saw last week, pain is a part of life, and anyone who is alive at some point feels the pain of a broken heart.
The Eagles sang, "There's gonna be a heartache tonight," The Bee Gees asked," Why did you have to be a heartbreaker," and Rod Stewart simply said, " I don't wanna talk about it, how you broke my heart." This is a typical reaction to a broken heart. We don't talk, we hide it away, gloss it over and think everything is going to go back to normal.
Bonnie Tyler sang, "It's a heartache, nothing but a heart ache, hits you when it's too late, hits you when you're down!"
And that's what heartache does. It hits you when you're down, and unless you deal with a heartache, you'll be down and out forever! You think you're ok, you feel like you're dealing with it, but then it hits you, because it you suppressed it and never really dealt with it at all!
If your heart is broken, the surface might heal over, but underneath the pain is still there... And that, my friends, is a heartache!
Lamentations 1:20
“Look, O Lord, for I am in distress; my stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me,
Romans 9:2
that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
WHO SUFFERS HEARTACHES?
Only those breathing!
We all suffer heartaches. If you leave a heart break long enough, you get a heartache. Here's a few examples of heartaches that might be close to home...
The parents of a wayward son or daughter. Millions of parents have been deeply wounded by a child who has rejected their counsel and they grieve when they see the deception and bad behaviour of a child who was once tender and good.
The victims of broken homes are hurting. The abandoned wife rejected by her husband for another woman. The husband who lost the love of a wife. The children who lost their security, who hear the constant fighting, who feel like pawns in their parent's conflict. The couple who broke up for whatever reason, whose hearts ache every time they see each other, and who's words hurt and destroy each other as their only means of defence.
What about those suffering illness. Facing the same pain and agony all alone night after night. No one knows, no one really understands, no one seems to care!
Lovers break up. A boyfriend or girlfriend walks away, trampling on what was once a beautiful relationship. All that is left is a broken, wounded heartache. A beautiful marriage is cruelly ended by death, and the heartache seems to never diminish.
You may have loved, but is was never returned in kind. I gave you my heart, and you just trampled on it and walked away! As Stevie Nicks once sang, "Stop dragging my heart around!" The initial pain of rejection is the heartbreak. The ongoing pain that can last years is the heartache!
And what about the unemployed? The despondent ones whose dreams have collapsed? The shut–ins? The prisoner? The homosexual? The alcoholic?
Heartache is unresolved, un-dealt-with heartbreak. It sits, it churns, it festers, and it's everywhere.
Last week we discussed the effects of a broken heart, and over time some of these also apply to a heartache, only bigger, only deeper!
We talked of bruises. They heal, at least on the surface, but the heartache goes on deep, deep within.
Bitterness happens when your heart is broken, but it is made worse, and the root of bitterness driven deeper once the heartache sets in. Keep chopping the top off the plant, as long as that root goes deep your bitter heartache will grow back again and again!
A broken heart makes you feel barren, lifeless, like nothing good will grow again in that patch of ground. A heartache left to fester long enough turns that barren patch of your life into the Sahara desert! Dry, lifeless, never-ending!
We also mentioned Bondage. Because a heartche runs so deep, you think you're suppressing it only to find it resurfacing again and again... it becomes a bondage to your life! A heartache can become your life... Not the outward life others see, the inner life you're left with late at night when you're all alone! It hits you when you're down!
CAN YOU HEAL HEARTACHE?
When you are suffering heartache, that deep agonising heartache, no one on earth can heal it fully. Only God can truly heal your heartache, and He can use various means to do it.
Yet people being people, we inevitably we want to try our way, man's way first...
TIME
Folks will tell you that "time heals all pain," but that is simply not true. In the case of heartache, time often magnifies the pain, and you can push it away for a time, but the slightest memory triggers the pain all over again.
Psalms 38:17
For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.
Ask an alcoholic, ask a drug addict, ask an adult who's been abused, ask a widow. Does time heal all pain? What a joke! Time, especially if you have lots of it on your hands, amplifies the pain like this microphone amplifies my voice!
FRIENDS
The pain of heartche is harder to endure than physical pain. Your friends want to help, try to help, and their smiles, jokes, hugs and distractions can relieve the pain for a time. A broken arm they can understand, but a messed up head? A constantly depressed friend, that becomes a lot harder, doesn't it?
Friends try and help, but do they really understand? After a while they get impatient, they offer easy solutions you know won't work, they start to suspect that you are over indulging in your own pity party.
They point out that others have survived heartache, and so should you.
They want to pray a once-off, cure-all prayer, and tell you to claim it by faith. Do they really understand the pain of true heartache? Maybe you should swap your friends with Job's... They thought they knew it all too!
Job 21:34
How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”
Friends can help, but not cure a heartache.
ESCAPISM
Proverbs 31:6-7
Give strong drink to the one who is perishing,
and wine to those in bitter distress;
let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
Booze, drugs, sex... They can take your mind off things for a short time. Some movie or TV show, yes you can escape this world into someone else's world for a time.
I won't hide it, things like drugs, alcohol or sex offer temporary relief, but it is only temporary at best.
Whoever you are, whatever the heartache, you know ineffectiveness of these temporary measures.
Because at some point your friends go home, you sober up, night falls and you are left all alone with the pain, the loneliness and the voices in your head. That's a heartache, hits you when you're down.
KEEPING BUSY
We manage to function and do alright in the day, don't we? We work, we watch TV, we meet people and we get distracted. At is often ok for heartache...
It's night, those long, still hours of the night when we cannot sleep, that's when the heartache really bites. There's gonna be a heartache tonight, and tomorrow night, and the next, and the next!
PROFESSIONAL HELP OR COUNSELLING
Doctors offer medication to help you cope. Professional counselling can also help, but many only help you find ways to cope with situations so the heartache is not so debilitating.
God can use counsellors, even secular ones at times, and sometimes the heartache can stop. Most often, you just find coping strategies!
But the right professional help can be a big part of your recovery. I firmly believe that Christian counselling is a powerful tool to deal with heartache, because it can marry the right strategies with the power of God.
HOW TO HEAL A HEARTACHE
Today the Lord is here with His arms wide open saying "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, don't carry that heartache around my yourself any more, come and I will give you rest and start to heal the heartache. Here's 5 steps to healing that deep pain for good...
1. DON'T BE SURPRISED
What happened that caused this heartache? Whatever is was, you're not the only one to face it. Your situation is not unique at all.
1 Peter 4:12-13
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
Heartache is going to happen, so don't be surprised when it does. And it's not a question of if, it is a matter of when. The real question is how do you respond to the heartache?
2. DON'T OBSESS ON WHO'S RIGHT OR WRONG
Here's something you need to grasp... Whether you were right or wrong means absolutely nothing this far down the track. All that matters now is your willingness to move on in God and trust Him.
Stop trying to justify yourself and let go!
Maybe you followed God's leading, and things blew up in your face. Maybe you're mad at God for letting this happen. You analyse what you did, what you said, what they other party did and said. You go round and round and obsess until the heartache controls your life.
Stop criticising yourself and thinking of all the brilliant, witty, cutting things you could have said or done! Self criticism can kill you, or at very least prolong your heartache ad infinitum!
If you've done wrong, repent. If you don't feel you have, repent anyway that you've obsessed on the heartache and not given it over to God, because He is big enough to handle it...
1 John 3:20
for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:20 (Message)
It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
Today is the day to lay off all guilt trips. Stop condemning yourself. Stop trying to figure out what you did wrong. This far down the track, it doesn't matter one bit. It's what you are thinking right now that really counts with God.
3. DON'T BLAME GOD
David Wilkerson describes blaming God or thinking God is behind all your hurt and pain as the worst kind of blasphemy!
You might think, as many believers do, "Maybe God is disciplining me?"
Hebrews 12:11
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
God disciplines, yes, but not like you're thinking! Heartache is a long term pain. Heartaches are not your Heavenly Father disciplining you. He's not thinking that, with just a few more heartaches, you'll start to finally listen and learn. He loves you and longs to comfort you.
Jeremiah 46:28
I will discipline you but only in due measure;
1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation (means adversity) has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
At times God disciplines us as a good father should, but never to breaking point, and never beyond hope. Heartaches feel like you are beyond hope, and His desire is to release that burden from your shoulders today, not pile more on to teach you a lesson!
One of my favourite verses is this...
Psalms 56:8
You have kept count of my tossings
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Listen to it in the Message Bible
Psalms 56:8
You've kept track of my every toss and turn
through the sleepless nights,
Each tear entered in your ledger,
each ache written in your book.
God loves you, watches over you and wants to carry your burden, your heartache for you. My friend Erick Buma wrote a song which sums it up... "Don't blame God, He's hurting too."
4. DRAW NEAR TO GOD
Where did we ever get the idea that God doesn't care and we have to face life's heartaches alone?
When you hurt the most, that's when you need to get closest to God. He's the answer to your heartache!
It's ok to endure heartache. Jesus wept. Peter wept bitterly and repented, and he was restored and turned the world upside down for Jesus!
God doesn't look away from your heartache. He doesn't think you're a wimp, He doesn't despise your heartache, in fact His Word says,
Psalms 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
In the Message Bible it perceptively says,
Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.
God captures every tear you shed in His bottle. He knows. He cares. He longs to wrap His arms around you! He never once says, "Toughen up, princess! Get a grip! Stand up and take your medicine! Grit your teeth and dry your tears, you sissy." No! Jesus bottles every tear in His eternal container.
God promises you,
James 4:8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
If you have heartache, today is the day to draw near to God!
5. BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL SURVIVE!
My brother-in-law was a Christian, but was so overwhelmed with heartache that he put a rope around his neck and jumped, hanging himself in his garage. Suicide is never, never an option. A permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Today is the day for you to "cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."... 1 Peter 5:7
It's the day to believe the Jesus who said, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." John 14:1
Hebrews 10:22-23
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Today, You may feel deep heartache. You may feel abandoned. Your faith may be struggling. You may think you are down for the count. Sorrow, tears, pain and emptiness may swallow you up at times — but God is still on His throne. He is still God!
You can't help yourself! You can't stop the pain and hurt. You can't cure the heartache. But our God can. He can lift you up if you draw near to Him.
Remember, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." It is your choice today... You can sit there and think God is not speaking to you, or you can respond and draw near to Him today.
He loves you. Bring your Hearaches to Him, and let Him wrap His arms around you.
"No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper" (Isaiah 54:17).
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