A SLAVE'S FREEDOM

There are things in our hearts that are so deep, so intimate, so delicate that we keep them there.  We don't always share them with another living soul.  Maybe we can't or maybe we don't know how to let them go.  It might be deep hurt, shame, guilt, longing, unmet desire, regret.  Some of those things we may have carried all our lives.  The circumstance that created the resulting locked emotion is long over, but not the imprint of it upon us.  The Bible says that the heart is the wellspring of life.  I can see why God says that as it appears to be the center of joy and trust or hurt and sorrow, and sometimes all mingled together.   What if our heart is troubled, in bondage, unable to let go?  How do we do that - how do we find freedom through God for our heart?  I read tonight Psalms 34:18a in The Message Bible, "If your heart is broken, you'll find God right there..."  God is in our hurt, in our regret, in our sorrow, in our unmet desires.  He's by all points of scripture not just on the sidelines handing us a dixie cup of water as we run by struggling on mile 13.  He's right there running with us in the hurt.  That's comforting to me as I ran tonight my heart full of some pain and my body struggling to make the miles.  He ran too, He hurt too and let me yell it out at Him for awhile - He is more than able to take my hurt.  Though it's not enough for me to know that God is present in my broken heart.  There has to be more or I will stay in the hurt without moving on.  How do I get past it, see it for what it is and trust God?  The end of that same Psalms chapter 34 says exactly what I need to hear, "God pays for each slave's freedom, no one who runs to him loses out."  Am I understanding that in issues of the heart there is bondage - the inability to free ourselves from it's hold.  But, God not only in salvation through Jesus bought my freedom, He buys our hurt off of us whenever we run to him.  I do so love the last part of that verse, "no one who runs to him loses out".  Even though I obviously feel like I have lost something to guilt, shame, regret, unmet desires or hurt, God says I will win something when I run to Him.  So, he must make a trade - hurt for freedom from the weight, the bondage, the longing for.  It's present tense and not conditional, "God pays..."   He wants my slave heart to be free not just from sin, but hurt, regret, shame, unmet desires.  I'm asking Him for that tonight.