While praying, the Lord showed me a man sitting down, picking at a large sore on his knee, it was all red around the wound from being picked so often, and you could also tell that some infection had set in. Then I saw Jesus with a bandage moving His arms in, to try to cover the wound so that it could heal, but the person kept pushing Him away, and wanting to work on it himself. He seemed to feel that he alone, was the only one that was safe, qualified, or familiar enough with the wound, to work on it. And he didn't trust God anymore with this pain, because he felt that the Lord was careless in allowing the wound to happen in the first place. Then the Holy Spirit explained this to me:

During the Wilderness, or as the Bride is making Herself ready, God will deliberately allow all your old wounds to become exposed because He wants to heal them, and He knows how much energy these old wounds steal from us every day we lug them around, and pick them open to work on them. But the Lord also has showed me that many of us keep these old wounds open because we are mentally and emotionally "picking the scab off" everyday to try to fix it ourselves, and feel in control of our pain, and healing.

There comes a certain time in our healing process where we have to leave the wound alone and just trust God to heal it. We must let God put a spiritual bandage on it and keep our hands off of it no matter how tempting or gratifying it may feel to pick it open again. Some reasons why we like to keep tearing open these old wounds are:

1. Guilt- We still feel guilty that we failed someone or God, and we are trying to somehow mentally/emotionally resolve it, and absolve ourselves, so that we can let ourselves off the hook and show ourselves that it really wasn't our fault after all.

2. Fear- We don't want it to ever happen again, so we want to develop a plan of defense should we ever be harmed or attacked like that again. We also want to keep control over the issue, because we want to protect ourselves, and we don't trust God to protect us.

3. Unforgiveness- We don't want to let it go, until the offender apologizes, and then and only then, will we feel safe around them again, and our dignity (pride) will feel restored. We just feel they "owe" us, and they need to make it right, or it's just too bad for them.

You see, we all "owe" God because of our sin, and He lets it go because of Jesus sacrifice on the cross. He will judge everyone in the end and only He knows the whole story. Continuing to pick open old wounds rather than just forgiving and letting them heal just seems to make it worse, and it magnifies the original incident far beyond reality. We must understand that we all make mistakes, and we will all answer for everything we ever did or said in life, and we all need forgiveness. Ask the Holy Spirit what He wants you to do concerning each particular old wound still left in your heart.