When Your Heart Is Heavy with Lysa TerKeurst: Part 1

Have you ever had a day where you just feel heavy? Join Lysa TerKeurst, Dr. Joel Muddamalle and licensed counselor Jim Cress as they look at the Lord’s Prayer for the daily cure for heaviness in our hearts: the surprising practice of confession and forgiveness.

Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week.. Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

If you have ever had one of those times in your life where it’s not that there’s something big and traumatic happening in the moment.
But you wake up on what could be a really good day.
But you feel like there is this unexplainable heaviness in your heart.
So raise your hand if you’ve ever been there. Yes, me too. Me too. Right.
And, and um I think that there are many contributing factors when someone has a heavy heart.
I know for me, my natural bent is I’m a peacemaker.
And when there are situations in my life that I feel like I can’t get to that place of peace.
Um Then it just creates a lot of heaviness and it feels like a constant distraction to me all day.
Um And so sometimes I can point directly to the reason why I’m feeling this heaviness. Other times I can’t.
Other times I wake up and I feel heavy and I, I’m not even exactly sure why it’s there.
But when we are studying forgiveness, one place in the Bible that I found to be so interesting is when Jesus told the disciples, let me tell you how to pray like this is then how you should pray.
And in Matthew chapter six, we find the recording of what Jesus then said, starting in verse nine, this is then how you should pray.
Our father in heaven hall would be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil 14.
If you forgive other people, when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.
And as I read that I’m struck by a couple of things.
Number one, if I was given the task by God to write one succinct prayer that for all time would teach people how to pray, I’m not sure that I would have fought to write it so brilliantly like Jesus wrote it.
And I’m afraid that if I was given the task, I was not, thank goodness.
But if I was given this task, I probably would not have fought to put in confession and forgiveness and make that the bulk of the focus of the prayer.
And so because Jesus did, if you count up the words, there are the majority of the words in this prayer that Jesus says.
This is then how you should pray.
They’re dedicated to uh confession, forgiveness, deliverance from the evil one and then a warning on forgiveness.
And there’s not a real clear break.
Like, was that last little part part of the prayer or was he just giving a commentary to me?
That’s kind of an irrelevant question because it’s all right there together and it’s all still in the words of Jesus.
And so I feel like so much when Jesus was teaching us to pray is focused on confession and forgiveness.
There must be a reason for that.
And as I decided to start implementing confession and forgiveness as a more daily routine, it started to lift some of the heaviness in my heart.
And I started to think to myself, wow, I’ve never been taught this before.
I’ve never been taught that the daily cure for heaviness in our heart is confession and forgiveness.
What are your thoughts? Uh There’s a lot.
Uh There’s a lot I think one very personally, just the last um couple of weeks, I had a friend who is walking through a really difficult season in their marriage.
Um been married seven years, got three kids.
Um and he found out some things that uh he was uh horrified um at and his wife and, and him, they’re, they’re working through the realities of forgiveness, uh betrayal, trust, rebuilding.
And it was really interesting. My friend said, uh just the other day he called and said, I realized that there were a lot of things I had been doing that I wasn’t aware of until my wife made me aware of it.
And I find myself during the day randomly where those things will just pop into my mind.
And when they pop into my mind, I stop what I do.
And I just go to her and I just confess that I say I’m so sorry for being short with you or I, and, and then she responds in this awkward, am I supposed to say something back?
Because we’re just, you know, making dinner, making lunch? Um But he used that exact same phrase, Lisa.
He said, it took a heaviness from my heart off and it replaced it with the sense of being able to really connect.
Um And I think that there’s a beauty there that takes place with confession that Jesus is trying to teach us.
And he gets that a couple quick notes about this.
Why is it that Jesus uh you brought this up so brilliantly? Why use these words? Well, why these sentences?
Why this structure? One of the things that I love about the Lord’s prayer is that the Lord says all the things he hasn’t acted in his earthly ministry.
So think about that, that the the Lord is saying um give us our daily bread.
Well, Jesus himself gave daily bread, you know, um he says, forgive us our debts as we’ve also forgiven our debtors, Jesus knows he’s coming to the cross where he is going to do that, judicial declaring of um uh of, of people being uh free of their guilt, lead us on to temptation, but deliver us from, from evil.
Jesus is the one who delivered uh the people of Israel, the people of God from a greater enemy than Pharaoh in Egypt, which is what they would have thought when they’re saying, deliver us from, they’re thinking in the Red Sea, they’re thinking this is our past story and this is what Jesus is doing.
And, and then how would the people who are hearing this?
How, what are they thinking of when they hear something like debts? I think sometimes we miss this.
But the m majority of the hearers of that time are people who are borrowing, not lending.
They are steeped in debt, they are steeped in the reality that some cases they can’t pay this back.
And Jesus is giving them a model um for this extravagant forgiveness that is modeled by Jesus himself.
And he’s gonna show that in the cross coming up.