We drown in words meant to heal, yet so rarely do they land in our wounds. True transformation begins when what we hear crosses the gap between our ears and our pain.
What we so often hear in the church, the words that stir applause and inspire us for a moment, are observed in our minds as performance. While their intentions were meant to heal, to cut deep, to transform, we have instead learned to classify them as valuable informational bits and then celebrate intelligence, admire wisdom, and nod along as if agreeing with truth were the same as living by it.
This is very common. While we receive what is being said as data instead of freedom, we create a distance within ourselves, a distance between our ears and our wounds, and it can be almost infinite.
We have been flooded with sermons, books, and videos. The words have always been there. The greatest book ever written could simply be what other books have already said. Truth has never been scarce. Our problem is not lack of truth, but the over celebration of truth as information.
How many times have we walked away from a sermon or a video stirred in the moment, but by the next day we forgot almost all of it and nothing in our lives changed? We have learned to applaud knowledge instead of living with the expectation of being transformed by it.
The Word of God was never meant to stay in our notes. It was meant to land in our wounds. It was meant to strike the very places we guard, and those places we guard the most are the areas where we have been wounded the most. We resist the transforming power of God’s Word because we know that change will hurt us, transformation will expose us, and pain is the primary thing we spend our lives trying to avoid.
Make no mistake. A highly successful Christian minister living with crushing pain is just as precious to God as the unknown, uncelebrated man on the street carrying the same pain and doubt. We all build masks to keep pain away, whether through ministry or addictions, we have taught ourselves to survive.
We cover our wounds with success, money, control, or even service. Not because we hate people. Not because we hate God. Not because we want others to fail. We do it because, for so many of us, the deepest pain imaginable is being seen the way we see ourselves. So we construct false identities, surface-level lives, protective mechanisms. We control situations, predetermine outcomes, dominate conversations, and call it wisdom. But underneath it all, we are terrified of being known.
That fear blocks everything.
It blocks people.
It blocks healing words.
It blocks intimacy.
Inside and outside the church, countless believers sit under message after message. They admire the words, they even appreciate them, but they never let them land deep enough to touch the soil of their hearts. The soil is guarded. We decide in advance what it needs. We shut out anything that threatens the walls we have built.
And then we point to our success as proof that our way works. “If I were not doing it right, I would not be successful.” But success is no proof of healing. It is often proof of how well we can hide. Deep down we are terrified. Terrified that if we were seen and known and truly celebrated for who we actually are, we would also be exposed as who we fear we might be, and so we control the narrative.
This is why so many leave the church. It is not that God’s Word has failed. It is that we refuse to let transformation wound us so it can heal us. We so often only want relief from pain, we do not want transformation.
Transformation is only possible through pain. We do not like that, so we keep cycling. And when a sermon or a song does not affirm our false identities, we run. We run from the church. We run from God. We run from His people.
But there is another way.
Accept this one thing today: If I want to change, I need to allow myself to feel the pain of transformation.
When you hear a godly word today, from a sermon, a song, or even these words written here, resist the urge to applaud it or admire it. Instead, ask:
Does this touch a deep wound I am most afraid to face?
If it does, let it in. Even if it hurts first. Especially if it hurts first. That is where transformation begins. God is not trying to hurt you, He is trying to reveal you.
God sees you. He sees you at the deepest level. He knows your wounds and He loves you dearly. He is not uncovering you to shame you. He is uncovering you to heal you.
You are not defined by shame, guilt, control, withdrawal, abuse, or grief. You are God’s specific creation. His beloved.
And the enemy’s greatest weapon is convincing you it is not true.
Take courage. You do not need to fix yourself before He meets you. You only need to stop guarding your wounds with who you think you have to be and let His Word touch who you truly are. You do not need to do this publicly, no grand declarations, no performance. Take one moment right now and hear your heart. Where are you afraid? Where have you been convinced that you are not enough, not loved, not worthy of acceptance?
You are not what you have done. You are who He calls you: beloved.
He calls you beloved because He means it.
