debridement of a wound.

i had a revelation this morning... it seemed to explain the craziness going on in my head and in my heart ... and in the church lately.

it seems that the Lord has been doing a great pruning in my heart and in His church, a very good, but very painful work.

I just went to a class about wound care the other day, and I was reminded of the painful process it is to debride and clean out a wound.  Usually unless a patient has severe neuropathy to begin with (which often results in loss of feeling in that extremity), you would give someone pain medicine before cleaning the wound.  sometimes cleaning out a wound needs surgery...
... the process being cutting away the dead tissue, and cleaning out all the excretions that could otherwise lead to a systemic (whole body) infection and just prevent the wound from healing.

...but when you clean out the wound ... and remove all of this excess matter, and all this dirt, and deadness... it gives the opportunity for new cells, and essentially new life to grow, that the wound may be healed, and the body may return to it's natural state.

anyone see where I'm going with this?  Isn't it a beautiful analogy?

it feels like in my own life, the Lord is doing this purging work of the things that are not of Him, and in Church-life sometime we would get so discouraged... because there are less people, or is this lack of excitement for the Lord's way... but the Lord has really been showing me to lift up my head... and see this glorious work of debridement of the many wounds this world has given  to the Church.

sometimes the Lord has to tear down to rebuild... see we built the church in the way we thought it should be... and then got discouraged cuz it wasn't working... and then we finally came to the Lord in desparation... and He's like ok, now I can work... but I gotta tear down this thing you built first, and do a purifying work among you.  I need to clean out the junk... and bring you into holiness, because that is what is acceptable in My sight.

Praise the Lord!! He is working!!  Let us not be discouraged!  how he needs to rip our hearts out and replace them with His.  dead tissue cannot be changed... it is dead and cannot be revived... it must be removed for new Life, in this case the Life of Jesus to be manifested in His church.

So Lord, do you work.  We are willing. Purge the junk, and glorify Your name in our midst.