Healing Begins When We Let Go
Letting go is where the healing begins.
📚 Devotional Credit:
Immeasurably More by Ray Stedman
📷 Photo Credit:
Unsplash
Job suffered unimaginable loss—his family, his health, his livelihood. Yet after all his cries, all his defenses, and even after his humbling encounter with God Himself, Scripture notes one pivotal moment when his suffering finally ended: when he prayed for his friends. Those very friends had wounded him with judgment and false accusations. To pray for them required a letting go—a choice to forgive from the heart.
Ray Stedman’s insight pierces gently: even the most righteous sufferer must release bitterness to experience full restoration. Job’s healing didn’t begin when his circumstances changed or when God answered all his questions—it began when he forgave. Scripture affirms that unforgiveness doesn’t merely hurt the offender; it torments the one who holds onto it. The choice to forgive isn’t a passive release—it’s an active participation in God’s grace.
📓 Journal Entry — Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture:
My beloved, I have not withheld Myself from you in your pain. I have been present in the silence, in the questions, and in the ache. But now I draw your heart toward healing. The wounds they inflicted were real—but so is the grace I’ve poured into you. I call you to release what I’ve already carried. Let go of the weight that was never yours to bear.
When you forgive, you are not excusing injustice—you are exhaling the poison that was stifling your breath. You are walking in the footsteps of the One who cried out, Father, forgive them. I in you—this is the life that forgives. And as you bless those who wounded you, you will taste the freedom I always intended. Your healing is not postponed—it begins the moment you entrust their wrongs to Me.
You are already whole in Me. Walk as one who is no longer bound by bitterness but filled with the mercy that now defines you.
(Scriptures: Job 42:10; Luke 23:34; Matthew 6:14–15; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13; Romans 12:19–21)
🔁 Real-Life Analogy:
It's like unclenching your hand after gripping a thorn. The pain doesn’t stop because you tighten your fist—it stops when you open it. Forgiveness releases the thorn before it infects everything.
🙏 Prayer of Confidence:
Father, I thank You that in Christ I am already forgiven—and already free. I refuse to carry what You’ve already buried. The grace that flows through me is enough to forgive, because it is Yours. I rejoice that my healing isn’t delayed or dependent—it flows the moment I entrust my pain to You. I walk forward today as one made whole in You, filled with mercy, and anchored in peace.