He Wounds and He Heals

Deuteronomy 32:39

“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.” 

The  earthly father rebukes his erring child. Our Heavenly Father is no different. We go our own selfish way and follow the dictates of our depraved and wayward hearts. We love the world, the flesh, and our worthless idols, but it will only be for a while for sooner or later they will prove to be the very source of our own heartbreak and remorse.

It hurts to be disengaged from the things that we love. But the pain is the medicine that is much needed to heal us. The truth of these cherished idols' faithlessness and worthlessness is the bitter pill we will have to swallow. The Father will never allow us to be forever loving and being fooled by our false idols for they will bring us to the path of hell. He will have to wound us with His restraining Hands.

For His wounding and restraining Hands will be His healing Hands. We will need no other and we will want no other.

Such is the comfort of His discipline.

“Blessed Lord, if this be the result of Your fiery trial; if it be to burn up and consume the self and carnality, the worldliness and unbelief of my heart, if it be to destroy the alloy and to scatter the chaff, then let the fire burn, let the furnace glow. May I, by this burning discipline, but be made more thoroughly a partaker of Your holiness.
Often the clouds of deepest woe 
So sweet a message bear,
Dark though they seem, 'twere hard to find 
A frown of anger there.
It needs our hearts be weaned from earth, 
It needs that we be driven,
By loss of every earthly tie, 
To seek our joys in heaven.
And what is sorrow, what is pain, 
To that parental care,
That breaks the conscious heart from sin, 
When sin is hated there?
Kind, loving is the hand that strikes, 
However keen the smart,
If sorrow's discipline can chase 
One evil from the heart." ~ Octavius Winslow