Wounded by God
By Ralph I. Tilley

Six hundred years before the Word became flesh the prophet Isaiah was given a vision of God's Suffering Servant. Of this One who was to bring healing, forgiveness and reconciliation to Adam's fallen race, the ancient seer said "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer" (Isa. 53:10).[1]

While reeling from the unfriendly providences thrust upon him, righteous Job cries out to God, "The arrows of the Almighty are in me" (Job 6:4).

There came a time when the patriarch Jacob was facing the challenge of his life. The very brother he had deceived 20 years previously is now approaching him with a band of men. As far as Jacob knows, Esau has come to take his pound of flesh. Jacob is desperate. He finds a place of solitude and the struggle begins . . . with God . . . and within himself. God uses Jacob's critical circumstances to show him his strength; he uses the occasion to open the eyes of Jacob to his own inherent weaknesses and sinful proclivity.

Under pressure from the Almighty, broken Jacob readily acknowledges that he was essentially a deceiver at heart, a manipulator of people. God wounded him internally as well as externally in order that he could bless him and use him more effectively. When Jacob had fully surrendered to God's strength, thereafter he always walked with a limp—a wound—a wound placed there by God so he would never forget God's strength and his own vulnerability (see Gen. 32:22-32).

The three aforementioned examples are typical of God's dealings with those he wishes to use as instruments of his righteousness and grace.

We live in a religious age where we are constantly besieged by popular preachers and writers regarding God's willingness to heal—the "Name it and claim it prophets." I'm a strong believer in divine healing. I know what it is to be healed personally; and I have seen others through the years healed by the Lord in a definite way. I have always emphasized in my ministry God's willingness to heal the body according to his sovereign pleasure and purpose.

But in our search for healing, prosperity, success and blessing from the lord, we're sadly and tragically missing out on something immeasurably more important. While we're continually crying out to God to bless us, we have failed to realize that God may want to wound us, bruise us, crush us.

Jesus said that the servant is not above his Lord. Even the Father, in order to affect His sovereign plan of redemption, chose to "crush" His own Son, that He might bring eternal blessing to mankind: "it was the Lord's will to crush him."

In our rush to be successful we have fought off being wounded by God; in our struggle to become somebody we have shied away from God's bruising blows to our self-centered egos and unsanctified ambitions.

J. R. Miller realized this and observed, "Whole, unbruised, unbroken men are of little use to God." A.W. Tozer recognized the same truth when he said that those whom God chooses to bless greatly he must first wound deeply. There is no blessing apart from the blows. There is no resurrection without the cross.

An unknown writer has formed this truth in poetic verse:

When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;How He uses whom He chooses,
And with every purpose fuses him:
By every act induces him
To try his splendor out—
God knows what He's about.

When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, "Not as I will, but as you will", he understood that he could not be the Father's instrument of atonement without surrendering to the Father's crushes. If Jesus as the Son of God could not accomplish his Father's will apart from accepting his Father's wounds, what makes us think we can accomplish the purposes of God apart from without accepting his bruises?

Could it be that too many of our Lord's servants today are praying for God to bless them when, instead, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ wants to wound them, bruise them, crush them? Too often our prayers consist of "Bless ME, bless ME, bless ME," when they should be "WOUND me, BRUISE me, CRUSH me."

God's wounds are necessary because of the tendency of human nature to be proud. The Apostle Paul finally reached the point in his struggle over the "thorn" in his flesh where he understood God's purpose of the thorn. He wrote later that God sent it to "keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations" (2 Cor. 12:7). How much pride is being flaunted in the body of Christ because God's servants have resisted the disciplining that comes from accepting God's piercing wounds in our points of pride.

When God chooses to wound his servants he selects the precise spots where they are the most vulnerable, the very places in their character and personality where a blow from God would cause them the most pain. He did this physically to Jacob by selecting one of man's most critical nerves—the sciatica. God struck his servant with a precision blow. He will do the same to us . . . if we don't run from the hand that would discipline us in love.

The God who wounded Jacob, Job, Paul, and His own Son, will wound his servants precisely where they need it the most. Why? In order to destroy us? Never! But because he is the Master Potter and wants to make us. Or, to change the metaphor, he takes our crushed egos, our wounded pride, our bitter failures, our defeated dreams—that he might create a divine fragrance, a heavenly aroma to ascend back to His throne. And when He smells the sweet smelling savor of His own making, He is pleased and rewarded. We want God to use our strengths; God wants to use our wounds. For God knows we are never stronger than when we are wounded. Because it is His wounds that make us weak in ourselves so that we might be strong in the Lord.

Once Martin Wells Knapp (d. 1901), the founding president of God's Bible College, was undergoing a painful trial. While in prayer one day, he asked the Lord to remove the problem. In relating this painful encounter, Lettie Cowman wrote, "As he waited before the Lord the vision of a rough piece of marble rose before him with a sculptor grinding and chiseling. Watching the dust and chips fill the air, he noticed a beautiful image begin to appear in the marble."

Cowman proceeds to say the Lord spoke to Knapp and said, "Son, you are that block of marble. I have an image in mind, and desire to produce it in your character, and will do so if you will stand the grinding; but I will stop now if you so desire."

Knapp's resolute response was, "Lord, continue the chiseling and grinding.”[2]

Years ago I copied on the fly leaf of one of my Bibles the following words which were written by Francis Asbury (1745-1816), American Methodism's premier pioneer circuit rider and leader: "Dear Lord, if Thou seest Thy servant will miss the way, in tender pity send a thorn deep into his side to drive him to Thy Christ and Thy Calvary."

I never realized the depth of those words as a young preacher. However, I have since had the opportunity since to experience the wounds of God: for it has been the Lord's will even to crush me. And I must say I have lived to kiss the Hands which dealt the loving and measured blows.

It may take some time before we arrive at the place where we can joyfully thank the Lord for wounding us, for using thorns in the perfecting process. But if we hold lovingly and obediently steady—that day will come.

Free Church of Scotland pastor and hymn writer, George Matheson (1842-1906)—who is perhaps best known for his hymn "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go"—once confessed to his lack of gratitude for a most unpleasant providence (he became totally blind at age 20). While contemplating his ingratitude one day, he wrote, "My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn! I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorn."

When it becomes the will of the Lord to crush us . . . to bruise us . . . to drive a thorn deep into our side . . . let us abide in Christ until what is lacking in us is perfected by the loving Hand of mercy.

1. Unless otherwise noted, the Bible version used in this article is the English Standard Version.

2. Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, Springs in the Valley (Los Angeles: The Oriental Missionary Society, 1939), 62.