Wounded by God's People Read Online Free Page A

as He was in her day. He has ears to hear the heartfelt cry of one person, no matter who you are or where you are or how long you have been there. Use the words of the following prayer if you need help articulating your cry.
    Dear God
,
    I’m living in my own version of Jericho — I feel trapped in a life and culture of sinful thoughts, actions, and patterns. My spirit is suffocating. I’ve been wounded so deeply and so continuously that I don’t know what it’s like to live without feeling pain every moment of every day. Please save me. Deliver me. I’m so very tired of hurting.
    I confess that some of my wounds are self-inflicted. Others have come as the consequence of how I have wounded others. I’m a sinner—it’s who I am and what I do. 12 I sin. And I know I’m separated from You. I’m trapped behind thick walls that have been built up over weeks, months, years, decades, generations, and these walls are barriers between You and me.
    Please break down the walls and forgive me of my sin. Save me. Deliver me. Set me free. I want to be Yours
.
    I believe Jesus is Your Son. You sent Him into my Jericho to make a way for me to be saved. I believe He died to set me free. Right now, would You forgive me of all of my sin for His sake? 13 I believe that Jesus rose from the dead to give me life. Please give me the freedom of eternal life, which I know will be a heavenly home when I die. 14 But I also know that it’s a personal relationship with You right now. 15
    I choose to leave Jericho and my old way of living. I invite You to come into my life. 16 Like the Israelites of old, I will follow You wherever You lead. 17
    Amen
.
    Listen quietly with the ears of your heart. Can you hear the sound of His feet rushing up the stairs into your life …
You’re saved! The God of Rahab has commanded Me to save you
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TWO
Life Is Hard
Everyone Is Wounded
    Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold
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    From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the L ORD .
    Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time
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    So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
    Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the L ORD , like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the L ORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company…
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    The L ORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”
    So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the L ORD .
    Genesis 13:2–11, 14–18
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    W hen do wounds begin? Who can remember the first one?
    And who can claim a life without them?
    Among my earliest memories of being wounded is an experience I had in grade school. My